I have read that the Earth is losing some of its gravitational pull and as a result the Moon is moving?

Question

farther and farther away. Is this true, and what will be the long range effect of this?

Answer 1

The Earth is not losing its gravitational force. For it to do so it would have to change its mass. The moon is moving slowly away because of its angular momentum.Millions of years ago the moon was much closer. It is moving away at a very slow pace but it is moving. Eventually it will escape the gravitational field of the earth. (inverse square law) When that happens we will lose the tides we will also heave an erratic axis movement with catastrophic effects on the climate and seasons. It is one of the doomsday scenarios on par with an asteroid hit.

Answer 2

It is moving away (at a rate of about 4 cm per year) because the friction from the tides is slowing the Earth-Moon system down. To conserve angular momentum the Moon gets further away, pretty much in the same way as an ice skater extends her arms to slow down her spin and brings them closer to speed it up.

It won't escape Earth's gravitational field. The same laws determine how far it can get. At that point both Earth and Moon would be presenting the same side to each other, the Moon would always appear in the same place in the sky, and it would take 47 days to orbit Earth, instead of the current 28.

However, when the Sun reaches this far, the friction from the solar atmosphere will start to slow it down, coming closer to Earth until it disintegrates a bit under 20,000 km from the surface. The Earth will have a very nice ring.

That won't happen for 4 billion years though.

Answer 3

The moon is moving away at the rate of about a centimeter a year, and its not due to earth's gravitation weakening.
It has to do with the conservation of momentum.

As the moon's gravity causes tides on earth, those tides cause friction on the earth and are very gradually slowing the earth's rotation. To conserve total momentum in the entire earth/moon system, the moon is moving farther out in its orbit.

Answer 4

I'd like to read that article. And possible long range effects could be catastrophic. For one thing, the moon affects the tides in the oceans. Another is that we might actually lose the moon from orbit completely, because if it gets further away it would need to slow down in order to stay in orbit.

Answer 5

There was definitely a moon moving, in a Cutlass Supreme, not too long ago. But it was not moving away from the Earth, but rather moving away from the front of the Bar and Grill.

Answer 6

The Moon is receding from Earth at a rate of about 3.8 centimeters per year. The impact will be slight -- lower tides in the distant future.

Answer 7

longer days...months...years...omg more school!!!!!! oh helllll no
... i also read on *****( yahoo! news*** that the moon is disinagrating...slowly...so you know how they say the moom effects the tide and all that)...up side is overweight people won't wheight so much due to lower gravity pull..