NASA says the moon is shaking, shrinking

Moonquakes happen, and they are shaking up lunar geology:

If you’re looking up at a bright full moon and notice it’s getting smaller, you’re so slightly right that you’re closer to being wrong. The moon is shrinking, but only very slowly, and it always has been since its formation, from which it’s still cooling down. You’ve never seen it when it wasn’t shrinking.

NASA has just announced, though, that this gradual reduction in size is producing moonquakes. The seemingly lifeless satellite is actually pretty dynamic from a geological point of view, a surprise to the scientific community. Blame shrinkage. Also the pull of earth’s gravity.Robby Berman, “The moon is shrinking — also, moonquakes are a thing” at BigThink

Paper. (paywall)

SkyNet also reveals, “NASA announced earlier this year that it wants to send the first woman, and the next man, to the moon by 2024.”

They can call in at the Chinese lunar base for tea… ;

Before you go: Hugh Ross: The fine-tuning that enabled our life-friendly moon creates discomfort Was it yesterday that we noted particle physicist Sabine Hossenfelder’s view that fine-tuning is “a waste of time”? Not so fast. If the evidence points to fine-tuning and the only alternative is the crackpot cosmology she deplores, it’s not so much a waste of time as a philosophically unacceptable conclusion. Put another way, it comes down to fine-tuning, nonsense, or nothing.

Moon formed from smashed moonlets?

Scientists finally know how old Moon is What’s surprising, really, is how little we know about the moon in general.

And various current theories:

Another moon origin theory: Epic crash

How the Moon Formed: 5 Wild Lunar Theories (Mike Wall at Space.com, 2014)

Our moon formed in collision with embryo planet?

and

Origin of the moon still shrouded in mystery

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