The Moon of Earth is gettin further away from us. Can't we save our Moon?

Question

I saw this video about the moon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyOyH9u4AdI

I heard the moon was 14,000 miles away from us a long time ago. It would've been very beautiful if it was still 14,000 miles from us today. Now, the moon is getting smaller in the sky & harder to view. Also, life wouldn't be the same if we didn't have the Moon anymore, life would be very different.

Anyways, the question is:

I just found out the Moon is getting further away from us every year. What about the people of the future, they would like the Moon to be there, life would be different for them without the Moon. Can't we save it & stop it getting away?

Answer 1

it is a totally natural response to the laws of gravitation.

the distance is increasing so slowly, that there is no need for anybody to worry about it for millions of years.

Answer 2

The Moon is moving away from us because some of the energy stored in it's motion is being used up creating tides on Earth.  But the further from us it gets, the weaker the tides will be and the less energy it loses.  Eventually the rate it moves away will slow right down and finally stop, so it will still be there, just further away and still orbiting.  This will take a VERY long time.    

Answer 3

Disregarding apogee and perigee (trying to keep this simple) the moon is very slowly drifting away from us.  It will not be noticeable in any one persons lifetime.  The shift is so minuscule, but yes, someday, it will be far enough away so that our "total solar eclipses" will never happen, they will all be "annular"  (where the outer edge of the sun is  clearly seen during what otherwise would have been "totality."

It will also mean a dimmer full moon.

The largest effects will be gravitational ones, but even that will be so gradual, and so subtle, that it shouldn't make much of a difference to any specific generation...  unless a generation can stay alive for several hundreds of years.

Answer 4

the moon is not getting further away from us. it only revolves on earth like the earth revolving around the sun.

Answer 5

I'll give you a moon!

jk

Answer 6

The moon is moving away from the earth at rate of 3.8cm/year.  Since astronauts first landed on the moon, the moon has moved 1.5 meters further away from the earth.

Current theory states that the moon will stop moving away from the earth and enter a stable orbit in about 15 billion years, with a semi-major axis of about 577,000km.

Since we only have about 3 or 4 billion years before the sun begins it's death cycle and becomes a red giant, we need to stop worrying about the moon and worry about how we're going to evacuate the earth before the earth becomes uninhabitable when our atmosphere and oceans boil off into space. :)

Answer 7

The spin of the earth causes a traveling tidal bulge in the ocean almost under the moon due to gravity which drags the moon orbit faster and faster.  You must stop the spin of the earth or freeze all the oceans.  Most people would miss the present day and night sequence or hate a totally frozen earth.  Also there is a lesser tidal bulge in the crust of the earth and the 'escape' of the moon would merely be slowed down if the earth continued to spin with its oceans frozen.  It takes millions of years for the moon to gain any real distance and the project to save the moon is low priority (at the present).  Of course the spin of the earth is also slowing down due to the same interaction with the moon and that may help a little.

Answer 8

no

Answer 9

we can save the moon by our

activities . we know its our fault

Answer 10

Moon cannot be saved of getting away because of centrifugal force which is pulling the moon away from its orbit. But we cannot save it now. Maybe the people coming after us are more advanced in technology and they might find a better way.

Answer 11

That is beyond our present declared level of technology

Scientists are already thinking of living on the moon. or even under the surface of the moon.  It is possible one day the moon will become our space ship to save us all.

The population of the earth moved to the moon for our journey to some distant planet

Stabilising the moon in its orbit would reqire a new kind of engine, and lots of them

Answer 12

We never loose the Moon.  The Moon is gaining orbital energy from the Earth's rotational energy.  Eventually the Earth's rotation slows down to match the Moon's orbital time.  Then, one face of the Earth will always face the Moon, just as one face of the Moon always faces the Earth now.  It turns out that it takes billions of years for this to happen.  And by then, the Sun runs out of nuclear fuel, and turns, briefly, into a Red Giant, engulfing the Earth and the Moon.

But the Earth (and the Moon) can be saved.  The physics is already well understood.  We get a big asteroid and put it on a figure 8 orbit between Jupiter and the Earth.  This asteroid steals some orbital energy from Jupiter (which won't miss it) and gives it to the Earth - expanding it's orbit around the Sun.  Then, when the Sun contracts into a white dwarf, we reverse the process, and make the Earth just the right toasty warm around the white dwarf, and we live happily for trillions of years on the Earth, either with the Moon hovering in the sky, or (if you're on the other side of the Earth) never seeing the Moon.

Answer 13

I did not know this that is intresting . I think the moon controls the tides aswell so god knows what will happen