How Far Away Are We From The Moon
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How Far Away Are We From The Moon
When you look at the moon in the night sky, you would never think that it is slowly moving away from the earth. But we know something else. In 1969, NASA’s Apollo missions installed reflective panels on the Moon. They showed that the moon moves away from Earth by 3.8 cm every year.
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If we take the current rate of recession of the Moon and project it back in time, we arrive at a collision between the Earth and the Moon about 1.5 billion years ago. However, the Moon formed about 4.5 billion years ago, meaning current recession rates are a poor guide to the past.
Together with our fellow researchers from the University of Utrecht and the University of Geneva, we used a combination of techniques to try to gain insight into the distant past of our solar system.
We recently found the perfect location to discover the long history of our waning moon. Not by studying the moon, but by reading the signs in ancient rock layers on Earth.
In Western Australia’s beautiful Karijini National Park, some gorges cut through rhythmically layered sediments that are 2.5 billion years old. These sediments are banded iron formations once widely deposited on the ocean floor and now composed of distinctive layers of iron- and silica-rich minerals found in the oldest parts of the Earth’s crust.
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The rock exposure at Joffre Falls shows layers of reddish-brown iron formation barely a meter thick, alternating with dark, thin horizons.
Dark intervals consist of softer rock types that are more susceptible to erosion. A closer look at the outcrops reveals additional regular, small-scale variations. The rock surface, polished by the seasonal river water flowing through the river, reveals an alternating pattern of white, red and blue-gray layers.
In 1972, Australian geologist A.F. Trendall raised the question of the origin of the various repeating cyclic patterns found in these ancient rock layers. He suggested that the patterns could be linked to past variations in climate caused by so-called “Milankovitch cycles”.
Milankovitch cycles describe how small, periodic changes in the shape of the Earth’s orbit and the orientation of its axis affect the distribution of sunlight that the Earth receives over the years.
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Currently, the dominant Milankovitch cycles change every 400,000 years, 100,000 years, 41,000 years, and every 21,000 years. These variations exert a strong control over our climate over long periods of time.
Major examples of Milankovitch climate forcing influence in the past are periods of extreme cold or heat, as well as wetter or drier regional climates.
These climate changes have significantly altered conditions such as the size of lakes on Earth’s surface. They are explanations for the seasonal greening of the Sahara desert and the low oxygen levels of the deep ocean. Milankovitch cycles have also influenced the migration and evolution of flora and fauna, including our own species.
The distance between the Earth and the Moon is directly related to a frequency of the Milankovitch cycle – the climate precession cycle. This cycle results from the precession (wobble) or change in orientation of the Earth’s axis of rotation over time. This cycle currently has a period of ~21,000 years, but this period would have been shorter when the Moon was closer to Earth in the past.
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This means that if we can first find the Milankovitch cycles in the ancient sediments and find a signal of Earth motion and determine its period, we can estimate the distance between the Earth and the Moon at the time the sediments were deposited.
Our previous research showed that Milankovitch cycles could be preserved in an ancient banded iron formation in South Africa, thus supporting Trendel’s theory.
The banded iron formations of Australia may have been deposited in the same ocean as the rocks of South Africa about 2.5 billion years ago. However, cyclic variations are better exposed in Australian rocks, allowing us to study changes at a higher resolution.
Our analysis of the banded iron formation in Australia showed that the rocks contain several scales of cyclic variation, repeating at intervals of about 10 and 85 cm. Combining this thickness with the rate at which the sediments were deposited, we found that these cyclical changes occur approximately every 11,000 and 100,000 years.
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Therefore, our analysis suggested that the 11,000-year cycle observed in the rocks may be related to a climatic precycle with a much shorter period than the current ~21,000 years. We then used this early signal to calculate the distance between Earth and the Moon 2.46 billion years ago.
Then we discovered that the Moon was about 60,000 km closer to the Earth (this distance is about 1.5 times the circumference of the Earth). This would make the length of the day much shorter than it is now, about 17 hours instead of the current 24 hours.
Research in astronomy has provided models for the formation of our solar system and observations of current conditions.
Our study and some research by others is the only way to get real data about the evolution of our Solar System and will be crucial for future models of the Earth-Moon system.
What Comes After The Moon And Mars?
It is amazing that the dynamics of the ancient solar system can be determined from small changes in ancient sedimentary rocks. However, one important data point does not give us a complete understanding of the evolution of the Earth-Moon system.
We now need other reliable data and new modeling approaches to track the Moon’s evolution over time. Our research team has already begun the hunt for the next set of rocks that will help uncover more clues about the history of the solar system.
Joshua Davies, Professor, Sciences de la Terre et de l’atmosphère, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and Margriet Lantink, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Geology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, The Moon is the largest object on heaven , and here it has a huge impact on life on Earth. But what is the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon? Why is this question not as simple as it seems? Royal Observatory Astronomer Aphelia Wibizono explains all…
Light travels at 300,000 kilometers per second, so it takes about 1.3 seconds for light to travel from the Moon to Earth. In other words, the Moon is 1.3 light seconds away from Earth.
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No orbit is perfectly circular. Some are very close, but all are at least slightly elliptical in shape. Astronomers can measure how close an orbit is to a perfect circle by calculating its “eccentricity.”
This is expressed as a number between 0 and 1. The closer the eccentricity is to 0, the closer the orbit is to a circle. In fact, a circle can be thought of as a special ellipse with an eccentricity of 0.
The orbit of Venus is the least eccentric of all the planets in our solar system, close to a circle with a value of 0.007. Mercury is the most eccentric with a value of 0.2.
The eccentricity of the Moon’s orbit is 0.05. Also, the Earth is not in the center of the Moon’s orbit. It is on one edge of the Moon’s elliptical orbit, so it is closer to one edge of the orbit than the other.
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Astronomers tend to talk about three different numbers when talking about the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
At its farthest point from Earth, the Moon is about 405,696 kilometers (252,088 miles) away, and astronomers say the Moon is at apogee (“apo” means “far”).
On the other hand, when the Moon is at perihelion (“peri” means “closer”), the Moon is at its closest approach to Earth. The distance between them is only 363,104 km (225,623 miles).
These two numbers differ by 42,592 km (26,465 miles) – more than three times the diameter of the Earth! The average distance between the Earth and the Moon is 384,400 km (238,855 mi).
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Elliptical orbit of the Moon with apogee and perigee distance. Note that the Earth is not at the center of the orbit and the eccentricity of the orbit is exaggerated here! Credit: NASA/Luc Viator/Affelia Wibisono.
But do those two distances affect us in any way? not quite, not exactly. The full moon will be slightly smaller at perigee (sometimes called a supermoon) and slightly larger at apogee (micromoon). However, the difference is not obvious to the naked eye and the only way to really see it is to compare the photos side by side.
Comparison of Micromoon and Supermoon. A supermoon appears
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