TITLE:
On the Expanding Earth and Shrinking Moon
AUTHORS:
Golden Gadzirayi Nyambuya
KEYWORDS:
Astrometry; Celestial Mechanics; Ephemerides; Planets and Satellites; Formation
JOURNAL NAME:
International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics,
Vol.4 No.1,
March
21,
2014
ABSTRACT: Exactly 101 years ago, German scientist Alfred Lothar Wegener, sailed against the prevailing wisdom of his day when he posited that not only have the Earth’s continental plates receded from each other over the course of the Earth’s history, but that they are currently in a state of motion relative to one another. To explain this, Wegener set forth the hypothesis that the Earth must be expanding as a whole. Wegener’s inability to provide an adequate explanation of the forces and energy source responsible for continental drift and the prevailing belief that the Earth was a rigid solid body resulted in the acrimonious dismissal of his theories. Today, that the continents are generally receding from each other is no longer a point of debate but a sacrosanct pillar of modern geology and geophysics. What is debatable is the energy source driving this phenomenon. Herein, we hold that continental drift is a result of the Earth undergoing a secular radial expansion. An expanding Earth hypothesis is currently an idea that is not accepted on a general consensus level. Be thatas it may, we show herein that the law of conservation of angular momentum and energy entail that the Earth must not only expand as a consequence of the secular recession of the Earth-Moon system from the Sun, but invariably, that the Moon must contract as well. As a result, the much sort for energy source driving plate tectonics can (hypothetically) be identified with the energy transfers occurring between the orbital and rotational kinetic energy of the Earth. If our calculations are to be believed—as we do; then, the Earth must be expanding radially at a paltry rate of about +1.50 mm/yr while the Moon is contracting radially at a relatively high rate of about -410 mm/yr.