What do wolves howl at, poets write poetically about, and is made of green cheese (although not scientifically proven yet!)? If you guessed the moon, nice work. The moon has been fascinating people for… well, at least as long as there have been people on Earth to fascinate! (And it’s captured the attention of a lot of animals much earlier than that.) But do many people really know how important the moon is to life on Earth? They may soon know when they hear the latest news… the moon is slowly moving away from the Earth! But don’t get too concerned. When scientists say slowly, they mean slowly—about 1.5 inches every year! Luckily, that means we don’t have very much to worry about.

But what if the moon did move away from the Earth? This could happen if a comet struck the moon and pushed it out of its orbit. How would a day on Earth change? Well, it would probably be a lot longer to begin with. This is because the moon’s rotation affects the Earth’s rotation. Without the moon, the Earth would rotate a lot slower; hence our days would be longer. On top of that, the tides would be much noticeable, or might disappear altogether from the oceans. This is because high and low tides are mainly the result of the moon’s gravitational pull on the Earth.