The Moon Is Slowly Drifting Away From Earth

Added: 2026-05-17

[00:00:00]The moon has been spiraling away from us ever since. Ever since it formed. Ever since it formed. Right now the rate is something like an inch inch and a half a year, something like that.

[00:00:09]>> That's actually not insignificant.

[00:00:12]>> insignificant. Yeah, it's not insignificant. And you can calculate what rate it should be spiraling away from us and you can measure it. Now we can measure it. Go ahead. Guess what happened on Apollo 11. They left behind some mirrors on the moon. Really?

[00:00:25]They're called corner reflectors. So corner are three walls at right angles to each other.

[00:00:30]It will bounce in such a way that it will come back exactly parallel to the angle you sent it in. Interesting.

[00:00:37]They're called corner reflectors. If you take a laser send it out through a telescope >> Okay.

[00:00:42]>> to the moon time the bounce back, do the math and you get the exact distance to the moon within fractions of an inch. And so over the years they published papers on the moon spiraling away from Earth.