Recession of the Moon

by Thomas G. Barnes, D.Sc.
(This article has been reproduced with permission from ICR. The original article can be found here.)

It takes but one proof of a young age for the moon or the earth to completely refute the doctrine of evolution. Based upon reasonable postulates, great scope of observational data, and fundamental laws of physics there is proof that the moon and the earth are too young for the presumed evolution to have taken place.

There is an easily understood physical proof that the moon is too young for the presumed evolutionary age. From the laws of physics one can show that the moon should be receding from the earth. From the same laws one can show that the moon would have never survived a nearness to the earth of less than 11,500 miles. That distance is known as the Roche limit.1 The tidal forces of the earth on a satellite of the moon's dimensions would break up the satellite into something like the rings of Saturn. Hence the receding moon was never that close to the earth.

The present speed of recession of the moon is known. If one multiplies this recession speed by the presumed evolutionary age, the moon would be much farther away from the earth than it is, even if it had started from the earth. It could not have been receding for anything like the age demanded by the doctrine of evolution. There is as yet no tenable alternative explanation that will yield an evolutionary age of 4 billion years or more for the moon. Here is as simple a proof as science can provide that the moon is not as old as claimed.

How does an evolutionist reconcile this proof that the moon is too young for the presumed evolution to have taken place? This known dynamical limit in the earth-moon system is a great problem to knowledgeable evolutionists. Robert C. Humes in his book Introduction to Space Science (John Wiley, 1971) acknowledges the problem and states that "The whole subject of the origin of the moon must be regarded as highly speculative." Dr. Louis B. Slichter, Professor of Geophysics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology treats this problem in great detail and concludes that "the time scale of the earth-moon system still presents a major problem."2

It turns out that the earth-moon tidal friction causes the earth's spin rate to be slowing down. Lord Kelvin used that changing spin rate, assumed an initial molten earth, and proved that the earth could not be a billion years old, or the earth's present shape would be different.3

Hence from theoretical and observational considerations there are two proofs that the earth-moon system can not be as old as a billion years.

1) The earth-moon spacing and recession rate refutes that long age.
2) The shape of the earth refutes that long age.
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(Dr. Walt Brown from the Center for Scientific Creation also has a great article which provides you with the actual mathematical equations for moon recession. To view this article, which is included in the book, In the Beginning, click here).

For more information, please see this article as well: http://creation.com/how-old-is-the-earth