All scenarios / Space

Moonfall

The Moon is drifting away, about 3.8 cm a year. Wrong direction.

What it is

In Moonfall, the Moon is knocked out of its orbit and starts falling toward Earth.

Why it ranks where it does

The Moon is moving the other way. Laser ranging experiments, which bounce lasers off reflectors left by the Apollo astronauts, show the Moon receding by about 3.8 cm a year. That's driven by tidal interactions that are also slowly lengthening Earth's day. Nothing in the solar system is big enough to knock the Moon out of orbit without first being spotted.

Evidence on the board

• The Moon is literally moving away from us.

What the experts say

Astronomers note that the Moon's slow retreat will one day end total solar eclipses, but that's hundreds of millions of years away.

The movie vs. reality

The 2022 film Moonfall reveals that the Moon is a hollow megastructure knocked off course by a hostile AI swarm. Real lunar seismometers left by Apollo astronauts recorded moonquakes and meteorite impacts that show a solid, layered interior with a small core. If something did push the Moon closer, the danger would come long before any collision. Inside a distance known as the Roche limit, tidal forces would tear it apart into rings. Fortunately, the Moon is drifting away from us, not toward us.

What would move the number

Live signals we track

The baseline above is set from the evidence as of October 13, 2026. On the live board, your browser adjusts it in real time using these feeds. Chatter can only nudge a score in proportion to its evidence, so attention alone can't make an unlikely scenario look likely.

• Public attention: daily Wikipedia pageviews for Moonfall (film)
• Online chatter: Hacker News stories mentioning "moonfall" this week vs. the prior eight weeks

Sources

1. Royal Museums Greenwich: How far away is the Moon?
   https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/space-astronomy/how-far-away-moon
2. Space.com: The Moon is drifting away from Earth
   https://www.space.com/moon-drifting-away-from-earth-2-5-billion-years

Baseline scores are an editorial threat index from 0 to 100 that combines current reporting with published expert estimates. They're meant for comparing risks, not as actuarial forecasts. See how the numbers work.