Yes it is, due to a transfer of Earth’s rotational momentum to the Moon’s orbital momentum as tidal friction slows the Earth’s rotation. That increase in the Moon’s speed is causing it to slowly recede from Earth (about 4 cm per year), increasing its orbital period and the length of a month as well. To picture what is happening, imagine yourself riding a bicycle on a track built... 

Not as we know them today. Many scientists figure Earth began as one huge continent – dry as a bone. Water was delivered in comets, the thinking goes, and the oceans developed. Much more recently, all the world’s landmasses were huddled into one supercontinent called Pangaea. It began to break up about 225 million years ago, eventually fragmenting into the continents as we know them today.  Read More →

You may say, “Of course the Earth.” Right now, it’s the worst that most humans I know ever experience. But there’s lots of wilder weather elsewhere. Mars can whip up hurricane-like storms four times bigger than Texas. Dust storms on the red planet can obscure the entire globe! Jupiter has a hurricane twice the size our entire planet, and it’s lasted for at least three centuries... 

The gravity on Mars is 38 percent of that found on Earth at sea level. So a 100-pound person on Earth would weigh 38 pounds on Mars. Based on NASA’s present plans, it’ll be decades before this assumption can be observationally proved, however.  Read More →