Removal of the moon from the earth. The moon left orbit and began to move away from the earth
We are accustomed to the fact that the Moon is a satellite of the Earth. However, will it always be like this? According to the general director of the Central Scientific Research Institute of Mechanical Engineering, Gennady Raikunov, our night star may sooner or later leave the earth's orbit and become an independent planet. In this case, the Earth will turn into a lifeless desert...
Raikunov assures that the Moon may well repeat the fate of Mercury, which is supposed to have once been a satellite of Venus, but then “flew away” from it. After this, the conditions on Venus became unsuitable for life, despite the fact that it is an Earth-like planet.
“The Moon also moves away from the Earth every year, and at some point, apparently, if it doesn’t happen reverse processes“, she must leave the Earth,” the director of TsNIIMash made this statement at the ongoing air show in Bourges. “Will it turn out that the Earth will follow the path of Venus, when conditions are formed that are unsuitable for existing forms of life - an aggressive atmosphere, enormous pressure, the greenhouse effect, etc.?”
According to the scientist, they are currently conducting space research, which will help to find out whether living conditions on our planet will change if it loses its natural satellite, and how the worst case scenario can be prevented.
Gennady Raikunov has long been concerned about the fate of the Moon. Previously, he called the satellite the “seventh continent” and said that it was necessary to create a permanently functioning base on it, whose employees would be engaged in research and use of the resources of this celestial body.
Now the Moon is moving around the Earth in an orbit close to elliptical, counterclockwise (when viewed from the side North Pole) with average speed 1.02 kilometers per second. In fact, the movement of our natural satellite is a rather complex process, which is influenced by various disturbances caused by the attraction of the Sun, planets and the oblate shape of the Earth. How likely is the scenario proposed by Raikunov?
Sergei Popov, a researcher at the Sternberg State Astronomical Institute of Moscow State University (SAI), confirmed that the Moon is indeed moving away from the Earth, but very slowly - the speed of removal is about 38 millimeters per year. “Over a few billion years, the Moon’s orbital period will simply increase by one and a half times, and that’s all,” Popov said. “The Moon cannot completely leave. It has nowhere to get the energy to escape.”
According to Surdin, under the influence of solar tides (the movement of water masses caused by the attraction not of the Moon, but of the Sun. - Ed. ) the rotation speed of our planet is gradually decreasing, and the speed of the satellite’s removal will gradually decrease. In about five billion years, the radius of the lunar orbit will reach its maximum value - 463 thousand kilometers, and the length of the earth's day will increase to 870 hours.
“The statement “The Moon can leave the Earth’s orbit and turn into a planet” is incorrect,” Vladimir Surdin commented on the words of his colleague Raikunov. “The solar tides will continue to slow down the Earth. But now the Moon will outstrip the Earth’s rotation, and tidal friction will begin to slow down its movement. In As a result, the Moon will begin to approach the Earth, albeit very slowly, since the strength of the solar tides is small."
But even if we imagine that the Moon is no longer a satellite of the Earth, this will not turn our planet into a semblance of lifeless Venus, scientists say. Thus, the head of the laboratory of comparative planetology of the Institute of Geochemistry and analytical chemistry named after Vernadsky RAS, Alexander Bazilevsky commented: “The departure of the Moon will have little effect on the conditions on the Earth’s surface. There will be no ebbs and flows (they are mainly lunar), and the nights will be moonless. We will survive.”
Raikunov’s colleagues do not entirely agree with his statement that Mercury was once a satellite of Venus. “Calculations have shown that this is possible, which, however, does not prove that it was so,” Bazilevsky said. In addition, he believes, the development of the Earth and Venus cannot follow the same paths, since in the Venusian atmosphere there is an increased content of the heavy isotope of hydrogen - deuterium.
"This may be due to the fact that Venus once had a relatively large amount of water. When water decomposed into upper layers atmosphere into hydrogen and oxygen, the light isotope of hydrogen escaped into space faster than the heavy one, and this resulted in the observed anomaly,” says the scientist. “But it is not a fact that there was liquid water on the surface of Venus, and not steam in the atmosphere, that is, it is not a fact that it was not as hot there as it is now.”
Now the Moon is moving away from the Earth. But when the day and month become equal, it will begin to approach. Will the Moon fall to Earth or not?
What is the future of the Earth-Moon system? If we extrapolate modern data on the rate of removal of the Moon, we can draw the following conclusion. The length of the day and month will increase all the time. In this case, the day will grow faster than the month, and in the distant future they will become equal. As a result, the Moon will always be visible from only one side of the Earth.
A system in which the planet and the satellite always “look” at each other with the same side already exists in the Solar System. These are Pluto and Charon. This is the most stable state in a TWO-body system. But the Earth is much closer to the Sun. Tidal forces from the Sun also slow down the Earth's rotation: the amplitude of solar tides is only slightly less than half the lunar tides. Therefore, after the Earth and Moon rotate synchronously, the Sun will continue to slow down the Earth's rotation. The Earth will begin to rotate around its axis SLOWER than the Moon in orbit. And this means that the Moon will be BELOW the synchronous orbit. Consequently, it will begin to fall to Earth.
Will all this end in a grandiose catastrophe in the history of the Earth?
A good scenario for a horror film: The moon is getting closer and closer, and it is impossible to stop it. After all, if the satellite ends up below the synchronous orbit, then its irreversible fall begins. Or not?
The satellite located below the synchronous orbit will “fall” on the planet, and the one located above will “fly away” from it. True, there is a significant clarification here. This will only happen if the planet's rotation speed remains constant. This is true for small satellites. And for the big ones? At what mass of the satellite can it already be considered large?
The answer is simple: if the orbital angular momentum of the satellite is comparable in magnitude to own moment momentum of the planet. In this case, the removal or approach of the satellite will significantly change the speed of rotation of the planet.
A simple calculation shows that in the Earth-Moon system, most of the total angular momentum falls on the Moon, and not on the Earth. Indeed, the angular momentum of the Earth is equal to:
Here I= 0.33 – dimensionless moment of inertia of the Earth, M- its mass, R– equatorial radius, V – linear velocity at the equator.
The orbital momentum of the Moon is:
Here m– mass of the Moon, r is the average radius of its orbit, v is the orbital speed.
The mass of the Moon is 80 times smaller than Earth, its orbital radius is 60 times greater than the radius of the Earth, and its orbital speed (1 km/sec) is 2 times greater than the equatorial rotation speed of the Earth (500 m/sec). Consequently, the Moon's orbital momentum is approximately four times greater than the Earth's rotational moment. Therefore, under no circumstances will the Moon be able to fall to Earth, even if in the distant future it ends up in a synchronous orbit.
As an example, let's assume that the Moon is in its current orbit, and the Earth does not rotate on its axis at all. In this case kinetic energy will be transmitted from the Moon to the Earth. The Earth will gradually begin to rotate, and the Moon will approach it: fall to the Earth. But it won't fall.
How close will the Moon be to Earth?
Orbital angular momentum is proportional to the orbital radius and speed. Orbital speed is inversely proportional to the square root of the radius. Therefore, the orbital momentum is proportional to the square root of the radius. If the orbital radius decreases by two percent, the torque will decrease by one percent. And this percentage, due to conservation, will be transferred to the Earth. Considering that the modern period of the Earth's rotation of one day corresponds to 25 percent of the lunar orbital momentum, then one percent will correspond to a period of 25 days. This period will be shorter than the lunar month, which, due to Kepler's third law, will decrease by only three percent and will be approximately 28 days. That is, the Earth will rotate FASTER than the Moon. Consequently, the Moon will NOT be able to approach the Earth even by 2 percent, but will approach a little less.
The future of the Earth-Moon system general outline such.
At first, the Moon will continue to move away from the Earth, receiving angular momentum from it. But the Earth does not have much angular momentum left - 25% of the Moon’s orbital angular momentum. Therefore, the maximum that the Moon can get is to increase its angular momentum by 25%. The radius of its orbit will increase by 1.5 times (1.25 squared). And the lunar month will increase approximately 2 times (according to Kepler’s Third Law, you need to raise 1.5 to the power of 3/2) and will be 60 days. Accordingly, the earth's day will also increase to 60 days. This is the MAXIMUM distance that the Moon can move away from the Earth.
How long will it take the Moon to move this distance from the Earth (half the radius of its current orbit)?
The distance to the moon is 380 thousand km, the removal rate is 3.8 cm/year. It is easy to calculate that the Moon will travel half its radius in five billion years if it moves away at a constant speed. But the removal rate will gradually decrease. So we'll have to add a few more billion years.
What will we do next?
The Sun will continue to slow down the Earth's rotation (solar tides).
But as soon as the Earth's rotation slows down, the Moon will move a little closer and the rotation will speed up again. The Sun will slow it down again, and the Moon will again approach and speed it up, and so on. The Earth is, in a sense, lucky to have the Moon. During its youth, when our planet rotated very quickly, it transferred its momentum to the Moon and thus preserved it. Indeed, under the influence of lunar tides, the Earth's angular momentum is not lost, but is only redistributed in the Earth-Moon system. And under the influence of weaker solar tides it is lost. But these tides can only take away angular momentum from the Earth. But for a long time now the main part of the angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system has been concentrated in the orbital motion of the Moon. And the solar tides cannot do anything with it. The Earth gave the lion's share of its rotation to the Moon, and there this share remains safe and sound. And after many billions of years, the Moon will gradually return its rotation to the Earth.
The natural satellite of our planet and the second brightest object in our sky, the Moon - of all moons solar system itself unique. Due to its size and proximity to the Earth, it ensures its stability.
But few people know that the Moon is moving away from us. And the farther, the faster. And soon there may come a time when it will no longer be able to stabilize the movement of our planet. Without the Moon on Earth it will begin ecological catastrophy: water will evaporate and glaciers will melt due to high temperatures. The sea level will rise by several hundred meters, and people will begin to get used to living in conditions of terrible hurricanes and fierce storms.
Without the Moon protecting us, life on the planet would simply disappear.
If the Moon moves away by only ten percent from its current distance to the Earth, which is forty thousand kilometers, then there will be no way back. The rotation of our planet will become unpredictably chaotic, which, in turn, will lead to the death of many forms of life on it.
It is impossible to say that for scientists distancing The moon came as a surprise. Over the past more than four decades, they have been observing the satellite very closely. In 1968, Apollo astronauts left the first instrument equipped with reflectors on the moon. This was done to more accurately measure the distance to the Moon using lasers. And this turned out to be just the thing.
Thus, currently in the state of New Mexico there is modern equipment that can easily calculate the distance from the Earth to the Moon. It is more difficult to determine at what speed the Moon is moving away. But we managed to find out this too. Decades of tireless work have shown that the satellite is moving away at a rate of four centimeters per year. It would seem that this is a very small value, but it is growing year after year.
Many people underestimate what the Moon is for our planet and what its gravity does for us.
Our satellite has the largest mass relative to its planet in the solar system, and thanks to this mass it can ensure the stability of our planet. The Earth's rotation is determined by its gravity, the force that attracts objects. Its magnitude depends not only on the distance between the planet and its satellite, but also on their masses, and since the mass of the Moon is very large, gravity is correspondingly large. At a distance of 800 thousand kilometers, lunar gravity holds our planet in its orbit. And this is very important for her: the Earth has a stable axis located at an angle of 23 degrees, and therefore, thanks to this slight tilt, the rays of the Sun are distributed evenly throughout the globe, maintaining a relatively narrow temperature spectrum on Earth, which is ideal for life.
And as long as the angle of inclination of the earth’s axis exists at this value, earthlings will have a comfortable and constant climate system. And it is this stability that makes it possible for all living things on the planet to live and develop.
The change of seasons familiar to humans is also associated with the tilt of the axis.
And if it were not for the Moon, the angle of inclination of the planet would be unstable, which means there would be no stable sunsets and sunrises, there would be no summer and winter.
Periodically, the angle of the earth's axis changes by two or three degrees in one direction or another, and as a result we observe many natural disasters. And what will happen when, as a result of changes in the magnitude of gravity, the angle of inclination begins to change steadily.
About a hundred thousand years ago, a slight drop in the axis angle changed the angle of incidence sun rays to the Earth, turning our lush forests into desert. And, probably, this is what caused the migration of ancient people to the north from Africa, and in North America and Europe this displacement provoked glacial period, which stretched over millennia.
And if scientists believe this ice age global event for our planet, it is difficult to imagine what will happen to it without the Moon. The earth will change beyond recognition, and climates will become unpredictable, presenting people with sudden temperature fluctuations.
Lunar gravity also affects the tides. Tidal cycles are repeated twice per day: this is how many times the Earth passes through the expansion zone directed towards the Moon. After all, it is lunar gravity, acting on the surface of the sea, that causes the tide.
Without lunar influence, the four-meter rise in water level at the equator will disappear, and the water will move deep into the planet, to the continents, which will naturally lead to a rise in sea level. And first of all, New York and Rio de Janeiro will be hit. The floods will devastate both cities, leaving millions homeless, some of whom will inevitably die. That's how much impact the Moon has on its planet.
And all of the above is not science fiction at all.
The moon, however, is moving away, and when it leaves completely, we - the inhabitants of the planet - will be doomed.
According to the researcher's findings, the Earth and the Moon did not always exist. The moon arose as a result of a cataclysm four and a half billion years ago.
The Earth formed from a protoplanet formed in the Solar System. Then it consisted half of molten mass. One fine day, the still young Earth collided with another planet, close in size to Mars. The impact occurred at exactly an angle of 45 degrees,
And when both planets collided, a giant cloud of rock debris was formed. The cloud was carried away from the Earth to such a distance that it could move around it in orbit. Some debris is more small planet did not fall to the Earth, but remained rotating around the Earth, sometimes merging with each other. And as a result, our native Moon began to form very slowly.
Four and a half billion years ago, the Earth rotated four times faster than it does today. The day lasted six hours, and the Earth's axis was tilted only ten degrees.
But over the past time everything has changed. And since the Moon was previously much closer to the Earth, it had a stronger gravitational effect on the ebb and flow of the tides, so the strength of the tides also changed.
The Moon formed at a distance twelve thousand times closer than it is today. Soon an ocean formed on the planet, and the Moon began to cause friction four times more often. The water was distributed among the small volcanic islands, and tidal friction began to reduce the Earth's rotation speed.
Over the next three billion years, our continents form, and tidal friction slows the planet's motion by up to eighteen hours per day. Half a billion years later, a day lasts 22 hours, adding a fraction of a second each year. And as a result, the day reached 24 hours.
In a billion years, the moon's gravity may slow down the rotation so much that there will be about thirty hours in a day.
However, gravity also acts in the opposite direction. And since the mass of the Earth is greater, its impact on the Moon is stronger. The Earth, in turn, slowed down the axial rotation of the Moon to one revolution per month.
When looking at the Moon, we always see the same side facing us. The Earth and Moon are in the same coupling, tied by gravity.
And it is the gravity of the Earth that has a more noticeable effect on the Moon.
As the Earth rotates, friction on the ocean floor slightly shifts the daily tidal wave from the point directly facing the Moon to the east. This volume of water has such enormous mass that its gravity pushes the Moon forward in its orbit, causing it to move further and further away from the planet. This one is very similar to a pebble tied to a rope: the faster you rotate it, the further away it will be from the person rotating it.
But it is also interesting that the Moon is not only moving away, but also gaining speed. In the Precambrian period, the rate of retreat was equal to 2 centimeters per year, and today's calculations made using lasers record an increase in the rate to 3.5 centimeters.
As the Moon moves away, the days will become longer, which means the seasons will be disrupted, which will turn life on Earth into something completely different.
To more clearly understand what the state of planet Earth will be like, just look at its close neighbor - Mars.
Mars and Earth have a lot general characteristics: They formed around the same time. The red color of Mars is given by hematite, a metal that is abundant on Earth. Like Earth, Mars has an ice sheet.
In 2004, scientists learned a lot about the Red Planet by landing on it. Scientists did not find water on the planet, but they found there something similar to former riverbeds and nodules - small spherical accumulations of fused minerals. On our planet, nodules form when water passes through sedimentary rocks, dissolving minerals, which then form into balls.
Scientists have found large deposits of nodules here on Earth in the desert of southern Utah, trying to understand the past of the planet Mars and the future of our planet. It turned out that the vast Utah desert was once the bottom of the ocean. And if the nodules on Mars developed in a similar way, then there was once a lot of water on Mars, which means that life there was also possible. But today Mars is a huge lifeless and waterless space, and scientists do not deny that if water leaves the Earth, it will become the same.
If the Moon's gravity goes away, a new redistribution of ocean water will begin on Earth. True, unlike Mars, the Earth will retain part of its liquid water due to magnetic poles, however, the water will rise hundreds of meters, wreaking havoc throughout the world.
In addition, without the protection of the Moon, the Earth would fall under gravity more major planets, for example, Jupiter. The stable tilt of the Earth will be a thing of the past. The planet will begin to tilt on its side, and many coastal areas will be flooded. And over time, the situation will only get worse. Since the speed of the Moon’s retreat is increasing, such a scenario is quite possible.
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New research by scientist Matthew Huber from Purdue University has shown that over the past 50 million years, the Moon has begun to move away from the Earth at an increasing speed. Main reason this phenomenon, according to the scientist, are the daily cycles of ebb and flow on Earth. This process helps to slow down the planet's rotation around its axis and move away from the Earth by approximately 3.8 centimeters per year. Based on these studies, it can be assumed that, provided that the Moon moves away at the same rate over the entire period of its existence, the age of the satellite should be approximately 1.5 billion years. However, it is quite obvious that these calculations are erroneous, since ongoing studies of lunar rocks have shown that the age of the Moon is much greater - almost 4.5 billion years, from which it follows that the formation of the Earth and our satellite occurred almost simultaneously.
Based on calculations by Matthew Hubert, it follows that every year the Moon moves away from the Earth by at least 4 cm
By studying the contours of continents and ocean floors that existed 50 million years ago, Matthew Huber and his colleagues created an accurate model of the tides of the distant past and calculated the gravitational interaction of the Earth and the Moon. It turned out that previously the energy of this interaction was half as much as it is now. Consequently, at this stage the Moon is moving away from the Earth at an increasing speed. There is no clear opinion on the causes of this phenomenon yet; one of the versions voiced by scientists is the likelihood of the influence of the expansion of the northern part Atlantic Ocean over the past centuries, as a result of which very large waves and high tides are formed, pushing the Moon away much more intensely.
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We know the structure of the solar system, where in the center is our luminary the Sun - the source of energy and life on Earth. The Sun is huge, its mass is approximately equal to 333,000 Earth masses, and its radius is 109 Earth radii. All planets revolve around the Sun and almost every planet has its own satellites. Our Earth is the third planet from the Sun and has one natural satellite - the Moon. This Earth-Moon pair was formed approximately 4.5 billion years ago.
There are three hypotheses about the origin and appearance of the Moon:
1 Hypothesis:
It was put forward by J. Darwin at the end of the century. According to this hypothesis, the Moon and the Earth initially constituted one common molten mass, the rotation speed increased as it cooled and contracted, as a result, this mass was broken into two parts. The small one is the Moon, the large one is the Earth. This hypothesis explains the low density of the Moon, formed from the outer layers of the original mass. But there is a serious objection from the point of view of the existing geochemical differences between the rocks Earth's shell and lunar rocks.
2 Hypothesis:
The capture hypothesis, developed by the German scientist K. Weizsäcker, the Swedish scientist H. Alfven and the American scientist G. Urey, suggests that the Moon was originally small planet, which, when passing near the Earth as a result of the influence of the latter’s gravity, turned into a satellite of the Earth.
The probability of such an event is very low, and, in addition, in this case one would expect a greater difference between the Earth and Moon rocks.
3 Hypothesis:
According to the third hypothesis, developed by Soviet scientists - O. Yu. Schmidt and his followers in the mid-20th century, the Moon and Earth were formed simultaneously by combining and compacting a large swarm of small particles. But the Moon as a whole has a lower density than the Earth, so the substance of the protoplanetary cloud should have divided with the concentration of heavy elements in the Earth. In this regard, the assumption arose that the Earth, surrounded by a powerful atmosphere enriched with relatively volatile silicates, began to form first; with subsequent cooling, the matter in this atmosphere condensed into a ring of planetesimals, from which the Moon was formed.
The last hypothesis at the current level of knowledge (70s of the 20th century) seems to be the most preferable.
Currently, the Moon is located at a distance of 3.844 * 108 m from us. Measurement results show that the Moon is moving away annually by an average of 4 cm, and this leads to a slowdown of the Moon around the Earth. Therefore, we can already assume that over time the Moon will become closer to the Sun and will be the first to fall into its hot embrace.
Astronomer from the USA, Lee Anna Wilson from the University of Iowa, studying the fate of the Moon, calculated that over time it will make one revolution around the Earth not in 27.32 days, as now, but in big time. The Moon's orbit will be disrupted, it will be attracted faster by the Sun, weaker by the Earth until it gets to the point where the forces of gravity and the attractive forces of the Sun will tear it apart. The moon will crack and fall to pieces, i.e. our satellite will end its existence in the form of a ring of debris rotating around the Earth. This ring will be similar to the ring of Saturn.
According to preliminary calculations by scientists, this ring will not live long and in the end it will “rain”, that is, it will fall onto our Earth - first small particles, and then larger ones.
If it really comes to this, then our Earth will follow the Sun, but others are also possible alternative options. The Earth, having lost its satellite - the Moon, will revolve around the Sun alone for years. And a lot depends on the luminary itself - the Sun, because it will also change all the time. All these options are hypothetical, and we assume that we can look at this fact from a different perspective.