Re: Why the moon keeps the same side toward earth?

Dear hanson:

"hanson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
...
> What I am interested to hear is whether/which/how the moon's "facing"
> and orbits period was affected/changed when according to the latest
> theory ALL the oceans waters froze, preventing tides from forming,
> and the other extreme case when there was no ice at all and only
> one single super-continent as an "island" in one global ocean?

There was a reduced recession rate during the "ice ages" as witnessed in
tidal rhythmites.

> Did the moon "shake" its face more, then less, back to a fixed "stare"
> during these extremes and did the moon's orbit distance increase and
> decrease? Do we expect a long term, irreversible dampening of these
> effects or do we have a system which can oscillate within the same
> amplitudes "forever", well, for a few billion years, without loosing
> a sizable portion of energy ?

I would expect that this oscillation would also be dampened.  But the
coupling would be really weak.  And additional "braking" is constantly
applied, since the Moon's period is always getting longer.

David A. Smith