"As the moon continues to move further away, the number of seconds, minutes and eventually hours in a day will also gradually increase - but it's likely none of us alive today will be around to notice it. 'Don't worry, these effects are so small,' he wrote on The Conversation. '1.5 inches per year compared to a distance of 239,000 miles (384,000 km) is just 0.00000001 per cent per year. 'We'll keep having eclipses, tides and days that last 24 hours for millions of years.'"
"The Earth's tides are strongly influenced by the moon's gravitational pull, which causes our oceans to slosh in two bulges. One points towards the moon, because this is where the force of gravity is the strongest, while the other points away from the moon, where the force is weakest. 'These liquid bulges do not quite line up with the moon,' Dr DiKerby said. 'They "lead" it a little bit because the Earth is rotating and dragging them forward.'"
The Moon is moving away from Earth at about 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) per year. That recession transfers angular momentum, causing Earth's rotation to slow and lengthening the duration of a day over geological time. Around 70 million years ago, days were approximately 23.5 hours long. The recession arises because tidal bulges in Earth's oceans are dragged slightly ahead of the Moon by Earth's rotation, and the forward pull from the nearer bulge speeds the Moon up and expands its orbit. The effect is extremely small relative to the Moon's distance and only detectable on average over years, with negligible impact on human timescales.
Read at Mail Online
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