• Question: Do you think that the earths gravatational pull could become stronger and the moon would come closer to earth?

    Asked by buddingscientist to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 14 Mar 2012. This question was also asked by jamjam8901.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 14 Mar 2012:


      The Earth’s gravity only depends on one thing – the mass of the Earth, and this isn’t going to increase any time soon!

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 14 Mar 2012:


      The only way the Earths gravity could get stronger would be by it getting more massive. Now the Earth could slowly grow mass from all the comets/asteroids hitting it, but it also slowly looses its atmosphere to space….. the mass isn’t going to change much soon, so this isn’t going to happen.

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 14 Mar 2012:


      The moon is actually moving away from the Earth by 2 cm a year! Not because of any change in the gravity, but because the moon gets a tiny bit more energy from the earth when it makes the tides, and this energy pushes the moon a little bit further every time it goes round. We don;t know if it will ever escape the Earth’s gravity, but if it did, what would life be like without the moon?!

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 19 Mar 2012:


      No, because that would mean there would be more mass on the Earth which would probably mean lots and lots (and LOTS) of asteroid strikes.

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