The moon’s orbit is askew, and two planetary scientists believe that they have come up with a good reason.

Intriguingly, their idea also explains why gold and platinum are found in the Earth’s crust, well within diggable reach.

The moon is believed to have formed out of a giant cataclysmic collision early in the history of the solar system when an interplanetary interloper the size of Mars slammed into Earth and lofted a ring of debris circling over the Equator. The debris coalesced into the moon.

At its birth, the moon was quite close to the Earth, probably within 20,000 miles. Because of the tidal pulls between the Earth and moon, the moon’s orbit has slowly been spiraling outward ever since, and as it does, Earth’s pull diminishes, and the pull of the sun becomes more dominant.