Anyone who's read The Gods Themselves know that the answer is no. The plot to achieve escape velocity was foiled.
"So the Moon is gradually receding from the Earth into a higher orbit, and calculations[2][3] suggest that this will continue for about fifty billion years. By that time, the Earth and Moon will become caught up in what is called a "spin–orbit resonance" in which the Moon will circle the Earth in about 47 days (currently 29 days), and both Moon and Earth will rotate around their axes in the same time, always facing each other with the same side. Beyond this, it is hard to tell what will happen to the Earth–Moon system, considering that the Sun is expected to become a red giant approximately 5 billion years from now." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbit_of_the_Moon
Ans when it was, there were 100 foot tides and other geological disturbances, making the evolution of intelligent life impossible. I saw a kick-ass show about this.
There was a show on the Discovery Channel about a year ago called "The purpose of the moon" that explained that the moon is indeed moving away from us about 3 inches a year. Scientist know this because each year they fire radio beams at the moon, then wait for them to bounce off the surface and measure the amount of time it takes for them to return. Every year these beams are taking longer and longer to bounce back. According to this show, we have about another billion years before the earth and moon reach something called a "point of equlabrium" where the moon will have drifted out so far from the earth that the gravitational pull from both the earth and the sun cancels out one another. Wen this happens, the moon will no longer orbit the earth. It will drift away and start its own orbit around the sun. By then, evolution will have taken its course on earth, and all mankind will be expecetd to have died out..according to them anyways!
The distance between the Earth and Moon increases by 3.8 cm per year. We will eventually lose the Moon.
Hopefully we'll be able to get something in exchange in a trade (note to management: NOT Io, plzkthx) rather than just letting it walk via free agency.
It's possible to have escape velocity and take your sweet time about actually escaping. In principle, the Earth's gravity extends throughout space, anyhow. In fact, one could probably come up with a pretty good approximation of the velocity required to "escape" the Earth's influence at its current distance. In fact, I could probably manage it by means of Lagrangian dynamics. If the Moon masses-- [pie]No! Not the physics! For the love of all things pie, don't inflict your physics practice on us![/pie] Oh, fine, whatever.
I don't think so. The moon's present distance is a function of tidal interactions with the earth. The moon yanks on the earth, creating the tidal crest that moves around the earth as it rotates (which is not limited to the sea by the way, the crust and the land on it rises and falls a little as well). However, the mass of this tidal bulge also pulls on the moon. It's the mechanism that has both slowed the earth's rotation and moved the moon farther out. Remember energy cannot be created nor destroyed. The tidal drag of the moon has removed a large amount of kinetic energy from the earth over the last 4 billion years, slowing its rotation from 6 hours to 24 hours, but this energy has been transferred to the moon. Over time it gave added impetus to the moon's orbital velocity, and slowly boosted it to its present orbit. However, with the distance at which it now orbits, its tidal effect on the earth is now very weak (compared to what it was at the start, when the "tides" were walls of water about a mile high that roared hundreds of miles inland, and then back out to sea, every three to six hours) and the quantity of energy being transferred from the earth to the moon is a shadow of what it once was. The moon will likely be orbiting the earth for the rest of the lifespan of this solar system.
The energy of the oceans slowing the rotation speed of the earth was converted into heat due to friction, it wasn't converted into lunar angular momentum
Hmm, the question of what would be the ideal replacement for our Moon is actually a really good one. Titan or Europa would be best I guess. Either way it would be great to look up at night and see a water world.
