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The moon is shrinking

Today I learned that the moon is getting smaller:

The moon’s shrinking has been measurable, but small. It has contracted about 150 feet in diameter over the last few hundred million years.

Small indeed! That comes to about a quarter of a millimeter every 10,000 years. At that rate, by the time the sun turns into a red giant and destroys us all the moon will be 2,158.5 miles wide rather than 2,159 miles. How about that?

9 thoughts on “The moon is shrinking

  1. megarajusticemachine

    Meanwhile, my "moon" seems to keep getting bigger every year!

    *rimshot*

    I'm here all week, please remember to tip your waiter.

  2. different_name

    If you don't keep it in the container, it will dry out. This is why you always put the Moon back where it belongs when you're through with it.

  3. civiltwilight

    Since the post relates to astronomy, is anyone planning to see the solar eclipse in April? I live in San Antonio, TX, and am hoping to view it in its entirety. Ideally, I will arrange to be in a small town between here and Dallas. I am having difficulty finding a map that names the towns along the path in anything other but a small scribble. But, the middle of TX is a place to be!

    1. Salamander

      Ditto.That is, we have reservations in San Antonio for the Big Day, but have not yet bothered to locate a locale on the eclipse line yet. My guess is, where ever we pick, it will be cloudy and/or rainy, just like the last time when we traveled to that midwest hell hole.

      On the other hand, we do have relatives we can visit afterwards in CC.

      1. civiltwilight

        Where is CC? Texas is not a hell hole except for the summer weather. I am not saying we don't have our problems. Texas is also not in the Midwest. It straddles the line between the South and Southwest. What paradise do you live in?

  4. KJK

    Not sure this can actually happen, since the moon is stuck in Firmament (along with all the stars, galaxies, and nebula that KD photographs and purports to be somewhere in the fake outer space).

    Must be reading way too much Quora, trying to drown out the TV ads for Santos's vacated Congressional seat.

    1. Yehouda

      From all the junk that we send it.
      Here, in Nature, is soembody from Navajo Nation saying that "For us, the Moon is an ancient relative ..." and therefore shouldn't send human remains to it.

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