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Article
Nature 271, 316 - 321 (26 January 1978); doi:10.1038/271316a0

Limits to the expansion of Earth, Moon, Mars and Mercury and to changes in the gravitational constant

M. W. McElhinny, S. R. Taylor & D. J. Stevenson

Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, A.C.T., Australia

New estimates of the palaeoradius of the Earth for the past 400 Myr from palaeomagnetic data limit possible expansion to less than 0.8%, sufficient to exclude any current theory of Earth expansion. The lunar surface has remained static for 4,000 Myr with possible expansion limited to 0.06%, the martian surface suggests a small possible expansion of 0.6% while the surface of Mercury supports a small contraction. Observations of Mercury, together with reasonable assumptions about its internal structure, indicate that G decreases at a rate of less than 8times10-12 yr-1, in constant mass cosmologies, and 2.5times10-11 yr-1 in Dirac's multiplicative creation cosmology.

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