What If the Moon Got Closer? (Real Physics)

What would happen if the Moon slowly moved toward the Earth? In this video I bring it closer step by step (from 384,400 km down to the Roche limit) and use real physics to show what changes at every distance: tides, moonlight, the length of a month, eclipses, and finally the Moon itself. Chapters 0:00 Twenty times closer 0:34 384,400 km: today's tides 1:20 Halfway: 192,200 km 1:58 100,000 km 2:35 50,000 km 3:13 20,000 km 3:51 The Roche limit 4:22 A ring around Earth 4:48 The good news The numbers • Tidal force grows with the cube of the distance: twice as close = 8× stronger tides. • Open-ocean lunar tide today: about half a metre. • Roche limit for a fluid / loosely held Moon: about 18,400 km; a rigid Moon: about 9,500 km. • The real Moon is moving away from Earth by about 3.8 cm per year (lunar laser ranging). The tidal heights at small distances are "on paper" equilibrium values; real oceans could not keep up with a fast-moving Moon. Animation made by Tiny Laws. Earth map simplified from NASA Visible Earth imagery (Blue Marble Next Generation, Black Marble 2016). Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... • "Darkest Child" • "Floating Cities" • "Ascending the Vale" • "Heartbreaking" #space #moon #physics #whatif