Moon's Bulge Explained

anthemaniac writes "The moon has an unexplained bulge that astronomers have been trying to find a source for since 1799. Finally, an apparent answer: The equatorial bulge developed back when the developing moon was like molasses (and you thought it was cheese!) and, rather than today's nearly circular orbit, it 'moved in an eccentric oval-shaped orbit 100 million years after its violent formation.'"

Missing energy

[Harmonious Botch]

So how did the eccentric orbit become so nearly circular? That takes a lot of energy ( and a little coincidence )

Re:Come on people, give the moon a break...

[Saint Stephen]

In Tolkien the Sun was the woman and the Moon was the man, always seeking her brilliance ... and occasionally wandering into the sky with her, only to be burned terribly.

I always found that mythology better.

The sun is a woman, and the moon loves her!

Re:Missing energy

[gardyloo]

Whoa. What's the repulsive 1/r^2 "centrifugal" potential? At first I thought you were including G.R. with the talk of tidal forces, but then I realized (via the 1/r potential) that you're talking about regular old Newtonian gravity. That's fine. But where's the repulsive potential?
      The only tidal forces I can see in this problem are evinced in the deformation of the earth or the moon, their atmospheres, and the ocean of the earth. Wikipedia has this to say about tidal locking:

There is a tendency for a moon to orient itself in the lowest energy configuration, with the heavy side facing the planet. Irregular shaped bodies will align their long axis to point towards the planet. Both cases are analogous to how a rounded floating object will orient itself with its heavy end downwards. In many cases this planet-facing hemisphere is visibly different from the rest of the moon's surface.

The orientation of the Earth's moon might be related to this process. The lunar maria are composed of basalt, which is heavier than the surrounding highland crust, and were formed on the side of the moon on which the crust is markedly thinner. The Earth-facing hemisphere contains all the large maria. The simple picture of the moon stabilising with its heavy side towards the Earth is incorrect, however, because the tidal locking occurred over a very short timescale of a thousand years or less, while the Maria formed much later.

    I'll have to try to work out how tidal forces within one astronomical body might lead to a circular orbit. It might be a well-known effect, but it's not obvious to me.

Iapetus

[j1m+5n0w]

Maybe next they'll be able to explain this [wikipedia.org]...

Re:Come on people, give the moon a break...

[gkhan1]

If that is true, it is a baaad mythology. The moon has always in the human mind been female, for basically every known religion. It was a good long while since I studied this, so I apologise if I make any mistakes.

In most (almost all I think) mythologies there exists a goddess that is identified with the moon (and a god that is identified with the sun, although he is rarely as important). For instance in greek mythology, it's Artemis, the goddess of the new moon. See, it has everything to do with phases. That's a funadmental theme in many religions, the cycle of birth-life-death-rebirth. The moon is the perfect symbol for this, first being very small (new moon), to becoming brilliant (full moon) to eventually dying (dark moon), and then being reborn (new moon again). This is closely tied to another classic mythological motif (a favourite of mine), that of the descent to the underworld. This one is everywhere in mythology and literature, Inanna does it, Jesus does it, Gandalf does it (when he fights the Balrog), frickin' Harry Potter does it. The motif is basically where a "hero" (Inanna/Jesus/Gandalf/Harry!) descends to the land of the dead (sumerian underworld/hell/beneth the mines of Moria/the Chamber of secrets), on the way he/she gets "undressed", either metaphorically or literally (Inanna loses her armour i think/Jesus is whipped and put on a cross/Gandalf skipped that part of the mythology/Harry loses both Ron and Hermione), faces the dark side of himself/herself (Erishkigal/the Devil/the Balrog/Voldemort), dies and is reborn (Inanna comes back/Jesus gets resurrected/Gandalf becomes Gandalf the white/Harry is resurrected by the Pheonix). Anyway, this is a tangent, back to the point.

This montly cycle does not only symbolize life and death, but also a decidedly more feminine cycle (if you can't guess what it is, I ain't gonna tell ya). While this connection is rarely explicit, it is certainly present. The moon also symbolizes many aspects that we as humans connect with femininity, such as darkness, magic, mystery and death, wheras the sun symbolizes typically male attributes such as ligth, reason, strength and life (it's so sexist that I can barely type without gagging, but that is the way the archetypes work). Therefore, the moon is often assigned to a female deity. Infact, because of the phases thing, it is sometimes assigned several. Artemis is the virgin goddess of life, the hunt and rebirth, and is the goddess of the new moon. Hecate, the dark witch-queen of sorcery is essentially the dark side of Artemis, is the dark moons goddess. One interpretation of this is that once a month, the beautiful, lively, and wonderful goddess (=a woman) turns into a raging witch-queen (=a bitch). (I'm telling you, this is so god-damn sexist, I want to vomit!) This female connection with the moon is the reason that many dark and mysterious concepts are frequently connected to women, such as intuition. You never hear anyone mention male intuition, do you? This is also why there are much more witches than warlocks in mythology and literature.

Anyway, I've been rambling on for a while now, and I should stop. The point is, if Tolkien chose to make the moon male, he made the wrong choice. In the human mind the moon is, and has always been, female.

Re:Come on people, give the moon a break...

[Chr0nik]

In ancient Arab and Sumerian religions, the moon was a Male god, and was considered the King of gods. You can see the crescent moon on much of the period coins etc. Harran was the literal city of the moon god and was named after him. Long before Muslims undertook Haaj to Mecca, it was a center for a religion of this type. The Kabah actually pre-existed Islam. In Babylon there were two distinct versions of this polytheism one in which the moon god was a man, and the other in which it was a woman. The Male versions of the moon God when by many different names, Sin(pronounced seen), Allah, Haran, Aksum, Yerah... Probably many others. In Egypt, Greece, and later, Rome it was always a woman, because by that time, it had been determined to be a smaller body than the sun, although closer. Since it was smaller, it could obviously not be male... Oh yeah, and saying that mythos regarding rebirth is related to the mentral cycle is like saying that my paying bills every thirty or so days is related the wife's cycle. That's simply rediculous, because if that was true, the fucking bills would come at a much better time of the month.