Jump1of 100 · 384,000 km from Earth
Moon: drifting 3.8 cm farther every year
The Moon moves 3.8 cm farther from Earth every year: how lasers have measured it since 1969 and why it happens. Sourced facts and my videos.
Curious facts
-
3.8 cm farther every year
Every year the Moon is about 3.8 centimetres farther from Earth. We know because lasers measure the distance to the mirrors the Apollo missions left there from 1969 onwards. 1
-
Tides are to blame
The bulge the Moon raises in the oceans pulls it forward and lifts it into a slightly higher orbit. In exchange, Earth’s spin slows down a little. 1
-
Titan escapes almost three times faster
It is not the only moon moving away. Ten years of Cassini data showed that Titan drifts about 11 cm a year from Saturn, a hundred times faster than thought. That is almost three times the Moon’s rate (my own sum: 11 divided by 3.8). 2
Videos
My shorts about Moon, in Spanish.
-
La Luna se está escapando
With AI-made illustrations, labelled on screen
No video loads until you tap one. Then it comes from YouTube (youtube-nocookie.com), which receives your IP address. More in the website privacy policy.
Moon in Orbit
In the game, Moon is jump 1 of the route, 384,000 km from Earth. Its logbook card says:
Logbook · Jump 1
Drifts away from Earth about 3.8 cm every year
Two steps with the Google account you use on Play: join the group, then download the test. Google Play can take a while, sometimes more than an hour, before it lets you download it; if you see “Item not found”, wait and try again.
Sources
- NASA JPL. jpl.nasa.gov/news/the-apollo-experiment-that-keeps-on-giving
- NASA JPL, 2020. jpl.nasa.gov/news/saturns-moon-titan-drifting-away-faster-than-previously-thought
Checked between 8 and 11 October 2026.
Image: NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University (LRO) · original