Just a couple of days ago, scientists announced that the moon is shrinking and shaking! What could this mean to us on Earth? 25 hours a day? Maybe soon. Read on to know more.
Let’s turn the clock back to the time when a huge meteoroid hit the surface of the Earth. And back then, Earth only consisted of hot molten magma, which splashed to space and solidified there, in the shape of a doughnut. Yes, that was the initial shape of moon. And since then, the moon has been cooling down. This is why the moon is turning thinner and thinner alongside shaking. Eventually, like we know, the proto moon turned spherical over the years.
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What if the moon drifted away from the Earth?
Billions of centuries ago, the moon was only a 14,000 miles away from the Earth. Every year, it kept moving an inch and a half away from the Earth and now it’s 250,000 miles farther from us. Earth’s rotation on its axis exerts a force on the moon orbiting around it. Remember how people sitting on the outer radius of a merry-go-round feel? That’s more like the force exerted on the moon.
So, the Earth’s rotation is indeed one of the reasons the moon is growing farther. How would that do a number on us, you ask? Well, if the moon kept spinning away from us, it will have a crucial influence. Because that would take a toll on the tides, mass extinction is what will follow.
That’s not all. Move might slow down Earth.
Of course, not. If the moon continued to move farther, then it’s going to affect our day-and-night schedule. Summers are going to get hotter and winters will grow colder. Initially, the Earth used to experience just 4 hours of day. Because the slower it gets, the less stable it becomes. The moon’s presence slowed it down by 19 hours. So in a quarter of a billion years, Earth might see a day of 25th hour too.
But not to worry, we won’t see any of this any sooner. It’s going to take billions of years for any of these symptoms to be witnessed. And who knows? With our next venture to the moon in 2020, we might even lay the foundation to many more of these revelations.
You might want to learn a little more here.
Want to know something about how the climate change is affecting the polar regions, check that out.
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