Moon is drifting 3.8 cm away from Earth every year. What happens next?
Scientific data collected over five decades confirms that the Moon is drifting away from Earth at a rate of 3.83 centimeters per year. While negligible on a human timescale, this phenomenon has significant implications for planetary science over geological eras.
Why it matters
Understanding lunar recession is critical for long-term planetary modeling and maintaining the accuracy of global positioning and astronomical data.
Over the next several hundred million years, Earth could face numerous unexpected consequences, all due to the distance slowly yet steadily developing between the planet and its only moon. In what is coming to be defined as one of the most precisely known physical quantities in all of contemporary planetary science, the Moon is moving away from Earth at the speed of 3.83 centimetres annually, with a formal uncertainty of approximately 0.09 millimetres.The number is based on the current best interpretation of five decades of lunar laser ranging data. It has been directly measured, thousands of times over, from multiple observatories on three continents, by firing laser pulses at retroreflector arrays that Apollo astronauts left on the lunar surface between 1969 and 1971.On the human timescale, the rate is roughly the rate at which human fingernails grow. Over a human lifetime, it accumulates to approximately three metres.
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