Why moon recedes

At that time, the moon started retreating at 6. Similarly, about million years ago, the moon's speed of retreat spiked to 7 centimeters per year as it got bombarded with meteors. It continued racing away at that rate as the supercontinent Rodinia broke apart on Earth.

The third spike was roughly million years ago: As life was exploding on Earth following millions of years of fluctuation between ice ages and hothouse conditions, the moon retreated at 6. The reason that changes in Earth's climate can impact the moon's retreat is that the formation and melting of glaciers affects the oceans , which then affect the moon. The fates of Earth's oceans and the moon's location in space are connected because the moon's gravity pulls on ocean water, creating a "tidal bulge" that stretches slightly towards the moon.

In turn, Earth's tidal bulge exerts gravity on the moon. The Earth spins faster than the moon orbits it, so as the bulge rotates away, it pulls the moon along with it. The moon pulls back, and that slows the Earth's rotation. All this dragging back and forth creates friction around Earth's tidal bulge, which pushes the moon outward and makes its orbit larger.

That's why researchers look to the imprints of ancient ocean tides to determine how fast the moon has retreated at different periods in time.

For you. The resulting loss of angular momentum is compensated for by the Moon speeding up, and thus moving further away. At the current rate of recession, the Moon must have separated from the Earth just 1. But while these missions seek to further our knowledge of the moon, we are still working to answer a fundamental question about it: how did it end up where it is?

On July 21, , the Apollo 11 crew installed the first set of mirrors to reflect lasers targeted at the moon from Earth. The subsequent experiments carried out using these arrays have helped scientists to work out the distance between the Earth and moon for the past 50 years. But if we assume that lunar recession has always been 3.

We know that the strength of the tide and so the recession rate also depends on the distance between Earth and the moon. So we can assume that the tides were stronger when the moon was young and closer to the planet. As the moon rapidly receded early in its history, the tides will have become weaker and the recession slower. Florin Andrei Florin Andrei It's called Earth tide. The amplitude is on the order of dozens of centimeters. In this case, the total energy kinetic plus potential of a wider orbit is larger.

This is really basic physics that you are arguing about. It's not that simple. The true picture is much more complex than is this simple picture. The tidal bulge as depicted in the image does not exist.

If it did exist, high tide would occur shortly after lunar culmination and then 12 hours and 25 minutes after that. This is very rarely observed. In fact, that tidal bulge cannot exist. To get the correct picture, one would have to integrate the effects of the oceans on the Moon over a long period of time preferably 18 years or more.

Our models aren't there yet. ChrisF ChrisF 1, 1 1 gold badge 8 8 silver badges 17 17 bronze badges. The moons slowly spin outwards. At miles up it is only mph. But when the body is slowing, the centrifugal force reduces, therefore is no longer able to match gravity, and the body falls? This is what happens to low orbit satelites? Show 2 more comments. Sign up or log in Sign up using Google.