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The Moon's tilt for gold

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The Moon's current orbit is at odds with theories predicting that its early orbit was in Earth's equatorial plane. Simulations now suggest that its orbit was tilted by gravitational interactions with a few large bodies. See Letter p.492

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Figure 1: Collisionless interactions could have altered the early Moon's orbit.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Robin Canup is in the Planetary Science Directorate, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado 80302, USA.,

    Robin Canup

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  1. Robin Canup
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Correspondence to Robin Canup.

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Canup, R. The Moon's tilt for gold. Nature 527, 455–456 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/527455a

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