} Therein Lies the Rub.

&--Wednesday, May 23, 2007 ; 6:32 PM
EldwinSchrodinger @ Mood orbital distance increasing over time.

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The moon's increasing distance has to do with a physics concept called angular momentum, which is a body's resistance to a change in its rotation or orbit. if we look at the earth-moon system, we find 2 sources of angular momentum
-Earth, which rotates once every 24 hours and the moon, which orbits earth every 27.3 days.
The moon also rotates , but earth's gravitational influence has slowed the moon's rotation to the point that it always keeps the same face pointed towards us. and we call that tidal locking*. thus, the moon rotates every 27.3 days.

A fundamental physics law says that the total angular momentum of a system, in this case, earth and moon, must remain unchanged unless some outside forces messes with it.

Earth and the moon constantly exert gravitational pull on each other. earth's pull has tidally locked the moon's rotation, and the moon's pull raises tides here on earth.

the friction of the water being moved back and fourth over the ocean floors has gradually slowed earth's rotation over the eons. 900 million years ago, our day was only about 18 hours at that time. as earth's spin slows, some of its angular momentum is lost.

but nature demands angular momentum to be conserved. that means the moon must increase its angular momentum to compensate to earth's loss.
there are 2 ways to do this. speed up, which the moon can't do, or increase its distance, which it can. so, over time, the moon recedes from earth.
this will continue until earth's rotation has slowed to the point where the length of our day is the same as the time it will take the moon to orbit earth: or simply said, until earth becomes tidally locked to the moon.
the bottom line.. tidal friction, caused by the moon's gravitational influence, is slowing earth's rotation rate.

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