The Moon Is Drifting Away From Earth. Here's What We Lose

The Moon is drifting away from Earth, and we can prove it with mirrors the Apollo astronauts left on the Moon and lasers that catch back about one photon per shot. But will it escape? What happens to our days, our eclipses and Earth's tilt? We check every headline. Chapters 0:00 Is the Moon drifting away from Earth? 1:01 1. How we measure the Moon with lasers 3:04 2. Why the Moon is moving away: tides 4:50 3. When Earth's days were shorter 6:38 4. The paradox: the Moon should not exist 8:45 5. The 3 things Earth loses first 10:42 6. Will the Moon ever escape Earth? 12:21 7. Verdict: is the Moon leaving us? Main sources • NASA/JPL, Apollo 11 laser ranging experiment (3.8 cm per year): https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/apollo-... • Williams, Boggs & Ratcliff (JPL), LPSC 2016, lunar laser ranging and tidal changes: https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/lps... • Murphy, "Lunar laser ranging: the millimeter challenge" (2013): https://arxiv.org/abs/1309.6294 • IEEE Milestone, Apollo 11 Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment (first return, Lick Observatory, Aug 1, 1969): https://ethw.org/Milestones:Apollo_11... • Williams (2000), Rev. Geophys., geological constraints on Earth's rotation and the lunar orbit: https://www.eoas.ubc.ca/~mjelline/453... • Meyers & Malinverno (2018), PNAS, 1.4-billion-year-old rocks: https://news.wisc.edu/thank-the-moon-... • Farhat et al. (2022), A&A, "The resonant tidal evolution of the Earth-Moon distance": https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.00438 • Stephenson, Morrison & Hohenkerk (2016), Proc. R. Soc. A, Earth's rotation from ancient eclipses: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/do... • NASA Eclipse Web Site (Espenak), solar eclipses 2001–2100: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEcat5/... • NASA Science, eclipses and the Moon: https://science.nasa.gov/moon/eclipses/ • Laskar, Joutel & Robutel (1993), Nature, "Stabilization of the Earth's obliquity by the Moon": https://www.nature.com/articles/361615a0 • NASA, Charon: https://science.nasa.gov/dwarf-planet... • IERS Earth Orientation (EOP C04, length of day since 1962): https://hpiers.obspm.fr/iers/eop/eopc04/ Headlines shown on screen are recreated without logos and attributed to the sites that published them. Diagrams of tidal bulges, orbits and Earth's tilt are schematic and exaggerated where labeled; the early Earth, giant impact and dry oceans are artist's concepts. Photos and video: NASA (public domain); tide and fossil photos from Wikimedia Commons (credits on screen); Sun life cycle: ESO/M. Kornmesser (CC BY 4.0). Big questions. Checked answers. #moon #space #science