'Hey Bill Nye, What Will Happen to Life on Earth If the Moon Keeps Drifting Away From Us? '

Hi. I’m Chris. I’m Brendan. We did some research and we saw that the moon is drifting away from Earth at 1.40 inches per year. We’re wondering what would happen if the moon finally drifts away. Thanks.

Chris, Brandon I believe. Brendan. Greetings. Yes, the moon is moving away from the Earth. What happens when the moon eventually moves away from the Earth?

You should be a celestial mechanician. You should be an orbital mechanical engineer. You should get a job at Jet Propulsion Lab or the Applied Physics Lab. That’s what you should do. That’s what these people do all day, is figure out the orbital motions of these various bodies.

So the moon’s moving away, so you would presume its influence on the tide would steadily decrease. And moving away, its orbital period will get slightly longer so the tides will get slightly more spread out. But when it becomes a significant thing, that’s a long time in the future.

But it’s fun to think about, isn’t it? It’s fun to wonder. So keep an eye on things out there in space, and just while we’re here, consider joining the Planetary Society. That’s what we talk about all the time, is orbital motions; how we’re going to get spacecraft to extraordinary destinations here in the solar system – Mars, Europa, the moon of Jupiter with twice as much sea water of the Earth.

Do you want to set up a telescope on the far side of the moon? If you want to do that, you’re going to have to understand these orbital motions. Big fun, Chris, Brendan. This stuff is what makes people go to schools to learn math, so they can compute orbital motions and understand the motions of the heavens.

So go for it.