Today I learned...

[Yukimura]

Today I learned why the same side of the Moon always faces the Earth, apparently tidal forces, like the ones that create the tides, act on the moon just as much as they act on the earth.

Long ago the moon was actually hot and gooey, before the cheese cooled down enough to warrant staging the moon landing because of the giant bacteria creating the Swiss-ness. Anyway, the Earth, being much bigger than the moon, pulled the spherical moon along it's equator making it look less like this ( ) a little more like this { } the tiny little points are closer to the Earth and have more mass then the other parts of the moon, so when the moon tries to rotate the pointy part away from Earth, Mama Earth starts yanking back on the moon, reducing the energy the moon has to rotate with, and consequently billions of years later people look up at a defeated moon that has lost the ability to turn faster than it goes around us thus we always see the same side.

I also learned the GW has a place where I can share random tidbits like this with other people, aren't forums just amazing!

[XanBcoo]

The moon's orbit is also growing at about 4 cm per year. This is because of more wacky effects of gravity. The moon pulls Earth's oceans slightly away from it, creating the tides. But because the resulting tidal bulges are closer to the moon than the center of earth, the gravitational force is therefore stronger. The tidal forces create friction between the Earth and it's oceans, causing Earth to slow down slightly and it's oceans to end up somewhat ahead in their rotation. This in turn causes the moon to be affected by the gravitational force of the tidal bulges, pulling it forward in it's orbit (since the Earth and its tides spin faster than the moon orbits around them - it's like the tidal bulge is tugging the moon behind it as it rotates). The growing distance has been proven to be true because astromers can bounce lasers and shit off of reflectors on the moon left there during the Apollo missions and judge the distance from that.

Apparently all of that means that Earth's days are growing slightly longer over time as well. The actual measurement escapes me.