The Deviation of the Lunar Center of Mass to the East of the Direction toward the Earth. A Mechanism Based on Rounding of the Figure of the Moon

Abstract

It is known that the center of mass (CM) of the Moon does not coincide with its geometrical center of figure (CF), and that the CF–CMline deviates to the Southeast of the direction toward the center of the Earth. An investigation of this phenomenon, which has remained incompletely understood, has been carried out in two stages. One mechanism can explain part of the eastward shift of the lunar CM as being due to tidal evolution of the lunar orbit. A second mechanism is considered here, which relates this shift of the lunar CM with evolution of the shape of the Moon. A differential equation describing the shift of the lunar CMto the East in the course of the physically inevitable rounding of its shape as it moves away from the Earth is derived and solved. This mechanism not only explains the eastward shift of the lunar CM, but also predicts that the oblateness of the Moon could have been appreciable at earlier epochs, reaching values ε ≈ 0.31. The theory of figures of equilibrium in a tidal gravitational field is used to determine how close to the Earth the Moon could have formed.