Our Moon was away from Earth 2.5 billion years ago

This article was originally published on Conversation. (Opens in a new tab) Post contributed this article to Space.com Expert Voices: Editorial and Insights.

Joshua Davis (Opens in a new tab)Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM)

Margaret Lantinck (Opens in a new tab)Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Looking at the moon in the night sky, you would never imagine that it is slowly moving away from the earth. But we know otherwise. In 1969, NASA Apollo missions Installation of reflective panels on the surface of the moon. They have shown that the moon he is It currently moves 3.8 cm away from Earth every year (Opens in a new tab).

If we take the moon’s current stagnation rate and put it back in time, we end up with A collision between the Earth and the Moon about 1.5 billion years ago (Opens in a new tab). However, the moon was formed About 4.5 billion years ago (Opens in a new tab)which means that the current recession rate is poor evidence of the past.

Together with our fellow researchers from Utrecht University (Opens in a new tab) and the University of Geneva (Opens in a new tab)We’ve used a range of techniques to try to get information about the distant past of our solar system.

We recently discovered the perfect place to reveal the long-term history of our waning moon. It is not from the study of the moon itself, but from the Reading signals in ancient rock layers on Earth (Opens in a new tab).

Related: How was the moon formed?

Reading between classes

in the beautiful Karigeni National Park (Opens in a new tab) In Western Australia, some gorges penetrate 2.5 billion-year-old rhythmic layered sediments. These deposits are striped iron formations, consisting of distinct formations Layers of iron and minerals rich in silica (Opens in a new tab) They were deposited on a large scale on the ocean floor and are now found in the oldest parts of the Earth’s crust.

Cliff’s Showcase Geoffrey Falls (Opens in a new tab) Show how the reddish-brown iron formation layers just under a meter thick alternate, at regular intervals, with darker and thinner horizons.

Joffrey Gorge in Carigeni National Park in Western Australia, showing a regular alternation between reddish-brown, hard rock and softer, clay-rich rock (indicated by arrows) with an average thickness of 85 cm. These changes are attributed to past climatic variations caused by differences in the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit.

Dark spacers are made of a softer type of rock that is more susceptible to erosion. A closer look at the bumps reveals a smaller, regular contrast. The rocky surfaces, polished by the waters of the seasonal rivers running through the valley, reveal a pattern of alternating white, red, and bluish-gray layers.

In 1972, Australian geologist AF Trendall raised the question about the origin of Various scales for periodic and recurring patterns (Opens in a new tab) Visible in these ancient rock layers. He suggested that the patterns may be related to past changes in climate caused by the so-called “Milankovitch cycles.”

Periodic climate changes

Milankovitch cycles describe how small periodic changes in the shape of the Earth’s orbit and the direction of its axis It affects the distribution of sunlight that the Earth receives (Opens in a new tab) over the years.

Currently, the dominant Milankovitch cycles change every 400,000 years, 100,000 years, 41,000 years and 21,000 years. These differences exert strong control over our climate over long periods of time.

The main examples of the effect of the Milankovitch climate effect in the past are the occurrence of Pretty cold (Opens in a new tab) or warm periods (Opens in a new tab)Beside moist (Opens in a new tab) Or dry regional climatic conditions.

Rhythmically alternating layers of white, reddish and/or bluish-gray rocks with an average thickness of about 10 cm (see arrows). The changes, interpreted as a signal of the Earth's motion cycle, help us estimate the distance between the Earth and the Moon 2.46 billion years ago.

Rhythmically alternating layers of white, reddish and/or bluish-gray rocks with an average thickness of about 10 cm (see arrows). The changes, interpreted as a signal of the Earth’s motion cycle, help us estimate the distance between the Earth and the Moon 2.46 billion years ago. (Photo credit: Frits Helgen/Joshua Davies/Margaret Lantink)

These climatic changes have significantly altered the conditions on the Earth’s surface, such as The size of the lakes (Opens in a new tab). They are the interpretation of Periodic greening of the Saharan desert (Opens in a new tab) And the Low levels of oxygen in the deep ocean (Opens in a new tab). Milankovitch cycles also influenced Migration and evolution of plants and animals (Opens in a new tab) including special species (Opens in a new tab).

The signatures of these changes can be read Periodic changes in sedimentary rocks (Opens in a new tab).

recorded oscillation

The distance between the Earth and the Moon is directly related to the frequency of one of the Milankovitch cycles – climate cycle cycle (Opens in a new tab). This cycle arises from the preliminary motion (vibration) or the change in the direction of the Earth’s rotation axis over time. The duration of this cycle is currently about 21,000 years, but this period would have been shorter in the past when the moon was closer to a land.

This means that if we can first find Milankovitch cycles in ancient sediments and then find the Earth’s wobble signal and determine its period, we can estimate the distance between Earth and the Moon at the time the sediments were deposited.

Our previous research showed that Milankovitch cycles may also be Preserved in the ancient iron-banded formation in South Africa (Opens in a new tab)thus supporting Trendall’s theory.

The banded iron formations were probably in Australia deposited in the same ocean (Opens in a new tab) Like the rocks of South Africa, about 2.5 billion years ago. However, the periodic variations in Australian rocks are better exposed, allowing us to study the variations at much higher resolution.

Our analysis of the Australian bands iron formation showed that the rocks contain multiple scales of periodic variations that repeat approximately at 4 and 33 inches (10 and 85 cm intervals). When combining these thicknesses with the rate at which the sediments were deposited, we find that these periodic changes occurred approximately every 11,000 years and 100,000 years.

Therefore, our analysis suggested that the 11,000 cycle observed in the rocks is likely related to a climatic introduction cycle, having a much shorter period than the current 21,000 years. Then we used this anticipatory reference to Calculate the distance between the Earth and the Moon 2.46 billion years ago (Opens in a new tab).

We found that the Moon was approaching Earth about 37,280 miles (60,000 km) at that time (that distance is about 1.5 times the distance). Earth circumference). This would make the length of the day much shorter than it is now, by about 17 hours instead of the current 24 hours.

Understanding the dynamics of the solar system

Research in astronomy has provided models for Shaping our solar system (Opens in a new tab)And the Notes for the current conditions (Opens in a new tab).

Our study and Some research by others (Opens in a new tab) It is one of the only ways to get real data on the evolution of our solar system, and it will be necessary Future models of the Earth-Moon system (Opens in a new tab).

It is really amazing that the past dynamics of the solar system can be determined by small differences in ancient sedimentary rocks. However, there is an important data point that does not give us a complete understanding of the evolution of the Earth-Moon system.

We now need other reliable data and new modeling methods to track the moon’s evolution through time. And our research team has already started looking for the next set of rocks that could help us discover more clues about the history of the solar system.

This article has been republished from Conversation (Opens in a new tab) Under a Creative Commons License. Read the original article (Opens in a new tab).

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Our Moon was away from Earth 2.5 billion years ago

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