A cross join, sometimes called a Cartesian product, is a join operation that returns all possible combinations of rows from two or more tables. Unlike inner joins, which only return matching rows, a cross join returns every row from the first table paired with every row from the second table. This means if table A has 10 rows and table B has 20 rows, the result set will contain 200 rows. This can be extremely useful in certain situations, but it's crucial to understand the implications of the sheer volume of data it can produce. Cross joins are often used for testing or generating all possible combinations of data, but they should be used with caution in production environments due to performance concerns. They are also useful when you need to compare every row from one table against every row from another table, such as in data analysis or testing scenarios. For example, you might use a cross join to find all possible pairings of customers and products in a database.