AT night, when the stars light up my room, I sit by myself... Talking to the Moon.
Much to the dismay of Bruno Mars and many others, not only did the Moon not talk back to us, but it's also trying to get away from us.
Is it true that the Moon and the Earth are drifting apart?
Verdict:
True
If you think being left by your ex is hard, buckle up as the Moon is seemingly trying to get away from you too.
Alright, that's a bit dramatic but the fact remains.
The Moon is slowly moving away from Earth, at the rate of 3.8cm yearly - roughly the rate at which fingernails grow annually.
But if we take the Moon’s current rate of recession and project it back in time, we end up with a collision between the Earth and the moon around 1.5 billion years ago!
The Moon was formed around 4.5 billion years ago, meaning that the current recession rate is a poor guide for the past.
Experts believe that “Milankovitch cycles" may be the reason behind this phenomenon.
The cycles describe the tiny diversion in the shape of the Earth's orbit and its axis and its impacts on the amount of sunlight received on Earth.
The amount of sunlight received on Earth affects its climate and is an indicator of the periods of wet and dry weather.
These cycles and their frequencies also determine the distance between the Moon and the Earth.
So what now? Is losing our beloved Moon inevitable? Not likely.
In the tens of billions of years to come, Earth's slowing rotation would make it tidally lock with the Moon so that Earth would permanently show just one side to the Moon, Jean Creighton, director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, was quoted saying by Live Science.
At that point, the Moon and Earth would stop moving away from each other.
It's safe to say that the Moon will not leave us nor will we leave it.
But instead, billions of years before that stability is achieved, the Sun will be the one to obliterate us all.
That got dark real quick, didn't it?
References:
https://science.nasa.gov/moon/
https://public.nrao.edu/ask/
https://www.livescience.com/
https://www.livemint.com/news/
https://www.space.com/moon-
