The Moon (idea)

The gravitational force between the earth and the mood causes both objects to bulge towards each other slightly. This is the tidal force. The earth is rotating and this rotation causes the bulge to move ahead, slightly, of the line between the centre of the earth and the centre of the moon!, this disrupts the isotropic gravitational field and produces a slight torque on the moon. In this way the rotation of the earth an the orbit of the moon are coupled. The earth's roatation slows down slightly and the moon's orbital velocity gets a litte bigger. The orbit of a body is directly connected to its orbital velocity, hey presto the moon, as it speeds up in its rotation, moves slightly further away from the earth.

The reason that the moon is locked into an orbit in which the same face is presented to the earth as it roatates about the earth is due to this same reason. The moons rotational engergy, through this coupling, settled into this state.

A consequence, as the moon moves away from the earth a total eclipse of the sun will no longer be possible, so catch one while you still can! (It will take a humanly relativly long time before total eclipses stop happening.)