To: SunkenCiv
The moon is receeding from the earth very slowly, too. Is it not? This would screw-up the calculations involving the lunar month, would it not?
6 posted on
08/31/2004 8:56:51 AM PDT by
Tallguy
(If Clinton did a good job stopping the Millenium Bomber, I've got 2 Towers in NYC to sell you...)
To: Tallguy
Currently, the moon is receding (escaping, after a fashion) from the Earth at the rate of 4 cm a year, or maybe it's 4 meters. Can't remember. A body in prograde rotation (stable orbit) around the parent body will recede, due to tidal forces I think it is. A body in retrograde rotation around the parent body will spiral slowly down, then go boom. :')
15 posted on
08/31/2004 12:21:19 PM PDT by
SunkenCiv
(Unlike some people, I have a profile. Okay, maybe it's a little large...)
To: Tallguy
The moon is receeding from the earth Yes. It is in fact already escaped from the earth and is influenced more strongly by the sun's gravity than earth's gravity. Eventually it will cease even the appearance of circling earth and will assume a position in earth's solar orbit either 60 degrees lagging or 60 degrees ahead, but there will be an intermediate orbit that carries it far away and brings it back in a horseshoe shaped orbit until that happens.
18 posted on
08/31/2004 12:24:41 PM PDT by
RightWhale
(Withdraw from the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty and establish property rights)
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