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Old February 16th 19, 07:34 PM posted to sci.astro.amateur
corvastro
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Default earth tilt to 45 deg?

On Friday, December 21, 2018 at 11:38:09 PM UTC-8, Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
Assuming that you would somehow also slow the lunar orbital speed at once to
the right measure, then this would mean, as angular momentum is preserved,
that days on Earth would be much longer than they are today (this is already
happening, slowly, by c. 15 µs/a).

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PointedEars

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Close, but not quite correct.

If somehow the Moon were bumped further away from the Earth at just the right angle to put it in a new orbit 1000 miles further away than it is now, the Earth's rotation rate would not change drastically. But the center of mass would be closer to the Earth's surface, so the Moon would orbit the Earth more slowly.

Also, the tidal drag would be reduced, so the Earth's rotation would not slow as quickly as it is currently.

If a huge asteroid did that, there would be a lot of solid and molten rock blasted away from the Moon. A lot of that would fall on the Earth, probably killing most/all life.