Ask Astro: How quickly is the Moon moving away from Earth?

Eliot H. Ginsberg

Riverview, Florida

Let’s first look at why the Moon is moving away from us. It boils down to one of Newton’s laws: conservation of angular momentum. As the Moon’s gravity pulls on Earth, it produces tidal forces that make the oceans bulge and cause Earth’s rotation to lose momentum. Slowing Earth’s rotation in t