{"id":33982,"date":"2017-01-31T20:23:16","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T04:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/earth-and-moon-may-be-on-long-term-collision-course"},"modified":"2017-04-24T18:56:31","modified_gmt":"2017-04-25T01:56:31","slug":"earth-and-moon-may-be-on-long-term-collision-course","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/earth-and-moon-may-be-on-long-term-collision-course","title":{"rendered":"Earth And Moon May Be On Long-Term Collision Course"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/earth-and-moon-may-be-on-long-term-collision-course.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nothing to fret about, but it is interesting that our Earth and Moon may end up colliding in the end. That\u2019s long after our Sun has expanded as a Red Giant, but the implications for other earth-moon type systems are interesting.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>For now, our anomalously large Moon is spinning away from us at a variable rate of 3.8 centimeters per year. But, in fact, the Earth and Moon may be on a very long-term collision course \u2014 one that incredibly some 65 billion years from now, could result in a catastrophic lunar inspiral.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe final end-state of tidal evolution in the Earth-Moon system will indeed be the inspiral of the Moon and its subsequent collision and accretion onto Earth,\u201d Jason Barnes, a planetary scientist at the University of Idaho, told me.<\/p>\n<p>We can\u2019t be sure, yet, though, whether or not the Earth-Moon system would survive the Sun\u2019s Red Giant Phase, says Barnes. That is, when some six billion years from now our Sun runs out of nuclear fuel; its core becomes a burned-out remnant white dwarf; and, its outer layers expand outward beyond Earth orbit.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/brucedorminey\/2017\/01\/31\/earth-and-moon-may-be-on-long-term-collision-course\/#469ea7d650d6\">https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/brucedorminey\/2017\/01\/31\/earth-...9ea7d650d6<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nothing to fret about, but it is interesting that our Earth and Moon may end up colliding in the end. That\u2019s long after our Sun has expanded as a Red Giant, but the implications for other earth-moon type systems are interesting. For now, our anomalously large Moon is spinning away from us at a variable [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,385,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-evolution","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33982"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49231,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33982\/revisions\/49231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}