The moon sets in the night sky, but all is not as it seems.
It turns out scientists have discovered that the Moon is moving away from Earth, changing everything we thought we knew about our planet’s relationship with its only natural moon.
This also has a very real influence on the length of the day on our planet, albeit at a very slow rate.
By moving away from Earth for millions of years, the Moon simultaneously increases the length of the average day.
A diam A team from the University of Wisconsin-Madison focused on rocks from a 90 million year old formation. By doing this, they were able to analyze the Earth’s interaction with the Moon 1.4 billion years ago.
It turns out that the Moon is moving away from Earth towards us at a speed of 3.82 cm per year. This means that, ultimately, days on Earth will last 25 hours in 200 million years.
“As the Moon moves away, the Earth looks like an ice skater slowing down as he stretches out his arms,” said Steven Myers, a professor of earth sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
He added: “One of our ambitions is to use astronomy to date time in the past, to develop a very ancient geological time scale.
“We want to be able to study rocks that are billions of years old in a way similar to how we study modern geological processes.”
This is not the only story that has changed our understanding of the Moon recently.
Scientists have just discovered secrets buried beneath the moon’s surface dating back billions of years, and it’s all thanks to China’s space program, which has uncovered hidden structures that could help us start piecing together the moon’s past.
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2023-09-18 14:57:53
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