I understand the distance between the moon and the earth is slowly increasing. Why?

Answer 1

Earth turns on its axis much faster than the moon orbits Earth. The day is shorter than the month. That means the bulges that the moon's tides produce on the Earth LEAD the moon's position a little on the side of Earth facing toward the moon, but TRAIL the moon's position on the side of the Earth that's facing away from the moon.

The tidal bulge on Earth that is on the side facing the moon has a slightly stronger gravitational attraction because it is closer to the moon. In other words, there's a net torque on the moon from the tides of the bulges. The torque wants to add energy to the moon's orbit, which means that the average distance between Earth and the moon slowly, very slowly, increases with time.

The converse is also true. The moon's gravity pulls back harder on the nearer bulge on Earth than it pulls ahead on the farther bulge, resulting in a net torque on Earth that tends to slow down the Earth's rotation and lengthen the day. It's a very slow effect, but it has been observed.

Answer 2

The earth and the moon are an planet-moon system, meaning their orbits are tied together and their gravities directly affect each other. The earth rotates at a certain rate (every 24 hours), but that rate is very slowly decreasing, due to the gravity of the moon pulling on us. (the earths powerful gravity is what despun the moon, so that now the same face of the moon always faces earth).

That slowing of the earths angular momentum means that the earth system is slowing losing energy...but that energy will not just disappear, it will go somewhere. It ends up that the moon is gaining that tiny bit of energy by moving away from earth by a small amount, maybe 2 inches a year or so.

Answer 3

Instead of hearing all this cryptic knowledge, it will be easy to say that first of all, both earth and moon are rotating on there own axis as well as around each other.
Now in Science, we have a measure of rotation by a quantity called ANGULAR MOMENTUM. It is simply product of the mass of a object, its distance from a line(which is well agreed upon before making calculation) and the square of the speed of rotation.
Notice that you can chose any line, but after choosing as line, you will find that ANGULAR MOMENTUM of the object does not change afterwards.
This is called CONSERVATION OF ANGULAR MOMENTUM.
Now, as Earth rotates, its speed of rotation is slowed down by tidal action of both sun and moon. But ANGULAR MOMENTUM cannot simply vanish by decrease in speed of rotation(remember conservation). So something out of distance or mass must increase. As earth and moon have fixed mass, the only thing that will increase is the distance between them.
Notice that compensation can also be done by increasing radius of either moon or earth, but that doesn't seems a viable option after all.

Answer 4

The distance between earth and the moon is increasing ever so slightly at the rate of about 1 cm per year.

At one time, the moon was seventeen times closer to the earth than it is now, so close that the crust of the earth rose and fell 300+ feet in tidial shift.

Answer 5

The effect of the moon's gravity on earth is slowing the rotation of earth down by one and a half thousandths of a second every 100 years. Because the earth is slowing down, the moon is spinning faster causing it to have a larger orbit.

Answer 6

Tidal drag.

The Moon raises tides on the Earth and the Earth rotates under these tidal bulges. Friction within rock (for body tides) and from water to rock (ocean tides) causes a drag effect that pulls this bulge ahead of where gravity alone would place it, and this offset pulls the moon ahead in its orbit and speeds it up.

As it is going faster now, its orbit recedes.

Answer 7

It would be much harder to believe if the moon's distance from earth were not changing. It would indicate that the centrifugal force of the PERFECTLY circular orbit was EXACTLY equal to the gravitational pull of a PERFECTLY spherical earth. Not likely, eh?

Answer 8

God decided that we need to be closer because people of earth deserve a better view Vs. God decided that we need to be farther than the moon because people are too mad at everthing !!!!!!

Just my thoughts lol !!! I can't really understand the question so included both points of view !!!!

Answer 9

yes, as many people have said, this is caused by the theory that the universe is continually expanding. after the big bang the universe continued to moved and still is. it is also beleived that the universe expands and contracts.

Answer 10

They do?How'd ya find out?Becuase i've never heard of a thing like this.