Real science: Earth running away from Sun!

Kelly Beatty's "Why is earth moving away from the sun" in New Scientist. [via SF Signal]

I'd seen a similar, but old, article by Isaac Asimov some years back that explained how tidal interaction between earth & moon was slowing earth's rotation period (a day is now 4 times longer than at earth's birth) & why moon is running away.

I wondered why I'd not seen something similar about earth/sun - so here it is.