Quirks and Quarks

Quirks & Questions: Can moon mining change tides on earth?

You ask the question, we find the answer.
Lunar mining, an artist's concept. (NASA / Pat Rawlings / SAIC / JSC)

Christopher Auchter, originally from Haida Gwaii, but now a resident of Burnaby, British Columbia, wants to know if we mine on the moon, what kind of effect would that have on the Earth's tides, oceans, and weather? 

Dr. Mathieu Dumberry, a professor of Geophysics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, says the amount of mass we'd have to remove from the moon to have any effect on tides would be enormous. For example, if we mine the equivalent of the mass of Mount Everest, it would only affect tides by 1/100,000%. 

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