Wouldn't the moon leaving the Earth's orbit give us a sell-by date too? I thought the removal of a large object like the moon would change our orbit as well, causing things to be dramatically different on Earth.
Is that wrong? What would happen to the Earth when the moon breaks away?
That's a pretty big if, actually. It may be possible for the earth to give up all its angular momentum without giving the moon enough energy to escape. But then we have eternal day and night on opposite sides of earth, so that's probably not a big improvement.
Actually the angular momentum transfer will stop when the moons orbit is the same length as the earth's rotation. So earth would still have day and night but would only have 10-12 per year.
Is that wrong? What would happen to the Earth when the moon breaks away?