Your going to need a bigger scope...

[boboco]

Shock horror - the moon is shrinking!!

But you do a long time to save up for the new scope...

"100m shrinkage occurred within the last billion years"

;-)

[mark7331]

And it's getting further away at just under 4cm a year!

Scary?

[Space Oddity6]

Nooo, not the Moon!

Seriously though, 4cm a year? Surely over a long period time (galactic) that's got to screw with our tides etc.?

[mark7331]

Yep. It will alter the tides, the weather and life in general. But put into perspective my friend we will all be long gone when it's just 4km further away(1000 years). Considering it's 400,000km away I would say that's small beer.

It takes the moon 7 1/2 years to move the length of a 30cm ruler away from us.

[appleade]

I thought it looked smaller tonight!

But the whole universe is expanding so it fits in with that anyway.

Now if it was getting CLOSER - that would get us all worrying!!

[the_laughing_crow]

Nevermind the moon getting closer, the star Gliese 710 in Serpens is getting closer.

Its going to get so close that its actually going to enter our solar system...... in like 1.5 million years. Which sounds like a long time, but the KT boundary when the dinosaurs went extinct was 65 million years ago.

Geologically speaking this thing is entering our solar system next week!

[mark7331]

But the whole universe is expanding so it fits in with that anyway.

Well, maybe. Quite honestly the jury's out. There are many many astrophysicists who say that dark matter is a bodge to make the maths work and that dark energy is just as made up. (oh don't get me started...)

WHAT? Getting closer? Run for the hills!

EDIT: And Gliese 710 will "approach" within 1.1 light years in within 1.4 million years. 1.1 light years is 70,000 AU. This means that it could interefere with the Oort cloud (50,000 AU out) and not in our solar system. It won't enter our solar system just flirt with it a bit.

[Doug]

So here's what we do, we send exstra rockets up to the moon over a 50 year period

and in 2060 we fire them off and put the moon back:iamwithstupid:

[mark7331]

I'm 44 you so can do what you want in 2060 but if I'm still around can I press the button to fire the rockets please?

[brantuk]

Sometimes the moon looks smaller or bigger depending on position relative to the atmosphere and how much of it you're looking though at the time

[Space Oddity6]

Nevermind the moon getting closer, the star Gliese 710 in Serpens is getting closer.

Its going to get so close that its actually going to enter our solar system...... in like 1.5 million years. Which sounds like a long time, but the KT boundary when the dinosaurs went extinct was 65 million years ago.

Geologically speaking this thing is entering our solar system next week!

No way, that's pretty cool. So when it does approach, does that mean the outer, colder planets like Neptune and Saturn along with their possibly inhabitable moons will 'warm'? Could be an interesting future and I for one plan to live forever