Does the moon rotate?

Following lunar librations, Boss Crater and Zeno Crater are favorable this month, 24th and 25th of June per Sky & Telescope June issue. According to Jean Meeus, we can see ~ 59% of the surface of the Moon as it spins slowly. Folks using telescopes who follow lunar librations can see a bit more at times. The article states near the end: "The moon and Earth loomed large in each others skies when they formed," then-graduate student Arpita Roy said in a statement. "At the time of the dinosaurs, Earth completed one rotation in about 23 hours," Daniel MacMillan, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. "In the year 1820, a rotation took exactly 24 hours, or 86,400 standard seconds. Since 1820, the mean solar day has increased by about 2.5 milliseconds." On June 30, 2012, an extra second was added to all of the clocks on Earth because of this phenomenon."

Using 100 million years and lunar recession rate of 3.82 cm/year, the Moon could be 59.67 earth radii distance from Earth or even closer depending upon tidal dissipation rate parameter used. Dinosaurs would see different solar and lunar eclipses and longer events too, assuming they took place. Demonstrating this using the fossil record seems challenging :)

Recently I watched this interesting video on the Moon. What would happen if there was no moon? Science with Sam explains, https://www.newscientist.com/video/...-there-was-no-moon-science-with-sam-explains/

My observation. A catchy 6:18 minute video here that includes using laser canons to blow the Moon up today to see what would happen ☹. Theia is discussed briefly that creates the Moon (Giant impact model). Evolution is discussed and the origin of life possibly caused by much larger tides in the oceans 4 billion years ago when the Moon was about half its present distance from Earth or at least the acceleration of evolution in biological *life forms* takes place including much later, your brain emerging from the early life forms in the primordial seas. I enjoyed the video. I did a calculation for the Moon orbiting Earth at 30 earth radii vs. the mean today near 60.3 earth radii. Using a circular orbit the lunar month is about 9.7 days and the Moon's angular size larger than 62 arcminute, about 1.04 degrees angular size in the night sky. Yes folks, those would be *super-Moons* 😊 One problem though. How can I show folks today that the Moon was orbiting Earth near 30 earth radii, 4 billion years ago? The video did briefly mention folks believing the Moon was made out of cheese too. I view the Moon sometimes using a green filter with my telescopes, it definitely looks like green cheese to me 😊
 
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