The Moon on It's Way to Extinction

The Moon, a dazzling and wondrous sight viewed from our planet Earth. Created about 4.5 billion years ago when a rock the size of Mars slammed into the Earth, the Moon, which is about one fourth the size of Earth, is a great participant in the Earth's daily life. Tides on Earth are caused mostly by the Moon because the Moon's gravity pulls on the Earth's oceans. The Moon is truly one of Earth's natural satellites. The Moon has a not quite circular 29.5 day orbit around the Earth. The Moon has stolen the Earth's rotational energy as well causing our planet to slow down by 1.5 milliseconds every century.

The Moon is constructed about the same as Earth; the core is hot and consists of molten magma, however the Moon's core is small. The Moon also tends to have geological issues just as Earth, like earthquakes or moonquakes. The quakes that occur on the Moon are proved to be caused by the Earth's gravitational pull. However the Moon does not have any atmosphere, no wind, no rain, and no active volcanoes. This is very helpful because the Moon does not have to suffer from surface erosion like us Earthlings do. The Moon has a surface that is full of craters due to collision with space rocks, but the moon is lucky, it never has to worry about Mother Nature pummeling its surface with its wrath.

The Moon has also been proven to stabilize the Earth's wobble, preventing otherwise dramatic movements of the poles that would fuel climate swings that over the last billions of years the Moon has affected the course of the growth and development of Earth's life forms.

So, why am I telling you this? Because each year when the Moon steals some of earth's rotational energy that I was telling you about, it uses it to propel itself about 3.8 centimeters higher into it's orbit. When the Moon was formed it was about 14,000 miles away from Earth, now it is more than 280,000 miles away.

Scientists have concluded that in around 5 billion years things are going to get a lot harder to deal with in the Earth and Moon systems. The Sun is swelling and is midway through its stable burning phase and will soon enough enter the red giant phase. So what is a red giant right? Red giants are stars that have worn out the supply of hydrogen in their cores and switched to fusing hydrogen in a shell outside the core. Since the helium core has no source of energy of its own, it contracts and heats up, and its gravity compresses the hydrogen in the layer immediately above it, thus causing it to fuse faster. This in turn causes the star to become more luminous and expand; the degree of expansion outstrips the increase in luminosity, thus causing the temperatures to decrease.

When our Sun begins to go through this phase it is going to be large enough to engulf all the planets in its solar system, yes that means Earth. The Sun's gravitational pull will have weakened by then and as the sun gets brighter the solar energy will cause the oceans to evaporate. The Moon is going to be part of this phenomenon and will then be in an orbit that is about 40 percent larger than that of what it is today.

The Moon will continue in its retreat until it would take bout 47 days to orbit the Earth. Both Earth and Moon would then keep the same faces permanently turned toward one another as Earth's spin would also have slowed to one rotation every 47 days. This drastic change will cause density and temperatures to increase rapidly as the Sun as a red giant drags it closer into its orbit will cause the Moon's orbit to decay and swing the Moon closer to the Earth. Theory indicates that when the Moon is torn to pieces, the pieces will eventually rain down onto Earth.

Note that I had stated that scientists see this occurring in about 5 billion years, so none of us that are reading this right now will be here to see it. Has anyone else noticed the weather changes? You can't deny that something is happening out there that we have no control over. So take this new knowledge into consideration as we all try to slow down global warming and do all of our parts to recycle and save the Earth for just one more day.