When will the moon escape?

[James Spence]

Ben, The moon is moving away from earth at 2-3cm per year. When it has moved
another 40,000Kms then the moon will be free.
Don't worry, it won't be in your lifetime.

James

[DogHeadGod]

There is a bit of software called universe sandbox where you can set up your own simulation of how the earth's orbit would change without the moon. Or how the earth would react to differnt sizes (and materials) of asteroid striking it. Plus any other combination of planets, stars, blackholes etc.

Universe Sandbox | interactive space simulator

The demo version is free for a few days (or so many uses ....I don't remember which).

[Amoeba]

Originally Posted by carlos_dfc

Over a longer period of time, our days are VERY slowly lengthening (600,000 years ago, 1 day was a little over what we would nowadays measure as 22 hours)

Are you sure? In terms of Earth's history, 600,000 years is just the blink of an eye, and 2 hours is a massive difference. Doesn't sound like a very long period of time for such a big change, unless you made a typo.

[welshcameraman]

Well it was there last night, but when I looked this morning it had gone????

Martin

[Chiltern Ben]

Hi Everyone,

I haven't looked at this thread in a while and the replies have shot up! Thanks to everyone that replied and I think that my question has been answered now.

Also,

Originally Posted by DogHeadGod

There is a bit of software called universe sandbox where you can set up your own simulation of how the earth's orbit would change without the moon. Or how the earth would react to differnt sizes (and materials) of asteroid striking it. Plus any other combination of planets, stars, blackholes etc.

thanks for telling me about the "Universe Sandbox" program. It sounds great and I might try downloading it in a couple of days.

Thanks,

Ben