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The Close Approach - A New Lunar Model

A Lunar Model

  • The Calm
  • Tidal Heating
  • Great Dying
  • Siberian Traps
  • Dinosaur Rise & Fall
  • Pangean Breakup
  • Global Warming
    • Seasonality
  • Lunar Origins
    • Apollo History

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The Calm

The CALM

The Close Approach – A Lunar Model

What if the moon weren’t a three days travel from the earth? What if it didn’t always show one face towards us? Have you ever thought about how a change in the orientation or dynamics of our moon would impact our everyday lives?

The past evolution of the moon’s orbit has interested scientists since at least George Darwin’s study of rotating viscous spheres in the late 19th century.  It is typically thought that the moon has been steadily retreating from the earth for the past four plus billion years and that it will continue to retreat. Strangely though, today when the moon’s current rate of retreat is calculated backwards it is found that the moon approaches the earth much more recently than four billion years ago – rather only 1.8 billion years ago!  It is the investigation of this discrepancy which has ultimately led to the hypothesis of a close lunar approach in the history of the earth-moon system.

Let’s look at things from the perspective of the CALM. Consider that at one time, in the not so distant past, the moon approached the earth, coming much closer than it is now. This happened during a great calm in our earth’s history. For hundreds of millions of years the earth saw temperate weather, mild seasons, and a relatively consistent environment. But this long period of calm was jarringly disrupted when the moon literally got “too” close. The close proximity of the two bodies set off a series of cataclysmic heating events that resulted in what is known as the Permian Extinction or the Great Dying (the greatest extinction of all time).  Read More

Timing is Everything

Timing Is Everything

Timing of a Close Approach

The earth underwent significant change at what is recognized on earth as the Permian Triassic (P-T) boundary. The earth and moon actually form a binary pair, in other words, a dual planetary system. When the earth is thought of not as a single planet, but as part of a system, it is possible to produce a model which can explain the Permian extinction and its aftermath.

The Close Approach Lunar Model hypothesizes that a close approach brought the moon near enough to the earth to produce a secondary tidal heating event in the earth-moon system.  This tidal heating event can answer a multitude of the unexplained geophysical and biological questions that exist in the earth-moon system. Read More

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ABOUT LUNAR ORIGIN

Journey to Discovery

The CALM (Close Approach Lunar Model) takes us back to the dawn of the Apollo age and shows us where science took the wrong turn that changed Earth and lunar science, and left us with more questions than answers.

The intellectual buildup leading to the Apollo missions brought on some of the greatest engineering and scientific achievements of mankind. Scientific collaboration and speculation were at a fever pitch as the first manned excursions to the moon approached. It was thought that science was on the verge of the “big one” and that the Apollo missions would answer the question of how the earth-moon system came to be.

Alas, it was discovered that the situation was much more complex than ever imagined. Though the Apollo missions provided valuable scientific data, samples and knowledge, it was roundly agreed that Apollo failed to answer the most important question of all, “How did the earth-moon system come to be?” Interest in the moon as well as the questions of the origin of the earth and moon as a system, drifted off into the many labs and scientific facilities which handled and catalogued the material and information of the Apollo missions. NASA and the scientific community moved on to the space shuttle, space station, and interplanetary exploration, leaving our nearest neighbor to the backyard astronomer.

In reality a small cadre of lunar scientists still exists. The Lunar and Planetary Science Institute and its university partners promote and facilitate the continuing pursuit of lunar science.

Presented here is my model which is based on our current understanding of, “How did our earth-moon system come to be and how might the moon impact global climate today?”

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