What would happen if the moon was sent into a more eccentric orbit... like
if it went in an extremely oval orbit of the earth... or orbited
around a different axis?

In short it would cause huge differences in tidal behavior probably
flooding parts of the world that are now inhabited and drying parts
that are not , it would cause major earth quakes caused by the same
shifting of forces , it could start an whole new continental drift
over time and if it passed close enough to the earth it could rip away
part of the atmosphere

Thanks Corwin. I'm doing research for a movie and maybe you can help...

What about Anti Gravity? What about SECONDARY effects of anti-gravity,
basically the side-effects.

What is the strange stuff that happens because of antigravity (or
because of the moon?s changed orbit)?

For example: You are in a room with TV or computer monitors. Suddenly,
slowly, the picture on all monitors starts to warp simultaneously in a
really strange way. Could this be caused (and I?m making this all up?)
by changes in the electro-magnetic field of the earth (caused by the
moon)?  Is that possible?

Or a lot of people in the same place suddenly get sick ? only for a
few hours. Or someone stops his car and shifts transmissions into
neutral, he watches in amazement as it seems to slowly begin to roll
uphill. He gets out of the car ? Puts a ball to the ground it rolls
uphill.  Water seemingly flows uphill, a pendulum swings only to the
south... Small things. Nothing too dangerous... Stuff starts floating
all around him.  Water. Paper. Insects. Birds. Leafs. Dust...  Little
stuff...

All these are the foreboding signs that get worse and worse and LEAD
to a morel cataclysmic events.  Vessels lifting, spinning -- assenting
into the air? in a vortex of oceanwater. Earthquakes, volcanos,
avalanches worldwide.

I don't know...

Maybe you can help. Mirko

Gravity on the Moon's surface is only a sixth of the Earth's, so even
if the Moon was touching your head, you'd still be fixed to the
ground.  Problems with CRTs might be a possibility - the Earth's
magnetic field is around 500 milli-Gauss while fields as low as 10 mG
can can affect CRTs.  If you're going to disrupt the magnetic field
you could get aurorae in unusual places, changes in radio
communications (the car radio suddenly picks up foreign language
transmissions) and problems with power distribution.  If something's
given the Moon that much of a jolt there'd be a lot of debris flying
around, so lots of meteors.  The event itself would be more than
spectacular though, so I doubt anyone would be concerned about the
subtle stuff.

Ian G.

Sounds like a neat movie...if you ever watched The Core, you'd
probably realize just how scientifically inaccurate that movie is. 
Remember - people don't go to the movies for accuracy...they go for
cool special effects!

I work as an aerospace engineer in the satellite arena, and have quite
a bit of experience with orbits and what more and what not.  As a lot
of these other comments note, the moon's orbit would not really affect
the earth in any way other than tidal shifts.

If the moon were touching your head, true, you'd still be stuck firmly
on the ground.  You'll weigh 5/6 what you do now, but you'll still be
firmly on the ground.  Same thing with cars, balls, etc.  Now,
consider the force of gravity dimishes as radius from the object.  So,
at a couple million miles, well...gravity from the moon is pretty
weak.  Strong enough to affect a large scale body like the ocean, but
not strong enough to affect any smaller scale systems (lakes, for
instance, have no/very little lunar-tidal relationships)

Of course, there is also Newton's first law, which basically states
that the moon won't go into a random orbit on its own.  It has to have
something (energy)put it into that orbit, like maybe an asteroid
hitting it.  Of course, this would not be a gradual change, but much
more drastic/quick.

Also, while CRT monitors are affected by electromagnetic radiation,
the moon's orbit won't affect the earth's magnetic field.  Now, you
could have a strongly magnetized asteroid field pass over earth, which
affects the mag field of the earth.  The asteroids crash into the
moon, affecting its orbit.

Then again -- it's a movie...if anybody complains and says "this would
never  happen in real life", tell them that's why it's a movie...

Mirko,

How about if the celestial body which crashed into the moon, thus
changing its orbit in the way you describe, was of a size comparable
to that of the moon itself - a really gigantic asteroid, let's say. It
could be of a denser composition than the moon, and so have a mass
even larger than the mass of the moon while still being somewhat
smaller in size. Then the new moon-asteroid object would have a much
larger gravitational field than the one which the old moon had. That
could cause gravitational effects of the kind you describe, objects
rolling uphill, floating around etc.

Note that, (since we are looking for absolute realism here, right?
;-)) if objects around the guy were floating in the air, the guy
himself would also be. If objects were rolling uphill, the guy should
also be feeling like something is pulling him and so maybe lean
forward a little bit, etc...

Hope this helps,
dannidin

Okay, thanks to everyone. If you have further theories as to the
conseqeunces and effects etc. please feel free to add them here
anytime. I'll be brainstorming this for a while and I'm sure new
questions will arise... Thanks again, Mirko

One impact of this is as follows.
We are able to see the other part of moon surface(if it rotates on
other axis). If the moon takes different time to rotate on its own
axis and the earth orbit. Then from earth we can see a different parts
of moon surface day by day.

Hi mirkobetz-

It should be pointed out that the moon does not have a magnetic field: 

http://www.gly.bris.ac.uk/www/teach/virtrips/nineplanets/luna.html

however, some of the surface rocks display some magnetism. This
probably isn't enough to affect a television display in the way you're
thinking. What might happen (and I am not a geologist or a planetary
astronomer, so I really have no basis for this hypothesis) is that the
moon's eccentric orbit could exert strong tidal forces on the earth's
core and somehow affect the earth's magentic field in that manner.
Check with your friendly neighborhood earth-core geologist to find out
what effect tidal forces have on the earth's core.

As for the gravitational issue, the problem here is that the
equilibrium point (where the moon and the earth exert the same
gravitational force on an object) is a lot closer to the moon than it
is to the earth. Some quick calculations seem to indicate that before
the moon's gravitational force on an object started overpowering
earth's gravitational force, the object would have to be more than 70%
of the way from the earth to the moon. What might happen is that
things might start falling more slowly due to the increased
gravitational effects of the moon. Dannidin's solution is interesting,
but I think before we saw any really cool effects the mass of the
object crashing into the moon would have to be so massive that earth's
orbit would end up totally distorted, which would lead to a whole
other mess of problems.

Tidal forces would certainly be a big issue. They'd have a serious
effect on the oceans, the atmosphere, probably (as corwin02 notes)
plate tectonics, etc. You might be able to come up with some fun
effects based on these.

I should make a personal plea here that you make a movie based at
least loosely on good science. Try to come up with effects that are
plausibly explained by actual science, or at best slight exaggerations
of actual effects. Some people pay attention to this stuff and get
very irritated by movies that ignore physics. You might want to check
out http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/ to see the folly of movies
past.

Good luck,
smudgy.

Google searches: <planetary magnetism> <moon magnetism> <gravitation
law> <movie physics>

Hi again mirkobetz:

One more thing. One should bear in mind that Kepler's Second Law tells
us that the moon will spend a lot less time close to the earth than it
will far from the earth. Also, Kepler's third law tells us that by
increasing the major radius (the long side) of an elliptical orbit, we
are increasing the period of the moon's revolution, so it will take
longer for each orbit of the moon around the earth. I haven't reviewed
the formulas in enough detail to come up with any numbers, but these
things should be kept in mind in terms of plot and pacing.

Google search: <kepler's laws>

It all depends on the size of the new orbit. 
Elleptical orbits have a major axis and a minor axis. If the semi
minor axis of the moon (ie half the minor axis) is smaller than the
present distance at any moment, it will move back to its original
orbit (since it forms a case of stable equilibrium). This can be
proved using calculus. This is true as long as the orbit is greater
than (the present orbit radius x inverse ratio of the squares of the
masses of the sun and the moon)...ignoring the effect of the sun...
If on the other hand, the orbit was increased, it will again restore
to its original position.
On the whole all objects held under a force of gravitation are in a
stable equilibrium ie a small movement left or right will cause them
to return back to their original position via a restoring force.
THIS LEADS US TO THE IMPORTANT POINT THAT THE ORBIT OF THE MOON CANNOT
BE CHANGED UNLESS IT IS CARRIED OUT DRASTICALLY. In such a case, the
moon could move around in the space unless it again reaches a position
where it can attain gravitational equilibrium. One thing that will
definitely change in such a case (which hasnt been mentioned yet) is
that the lunar month will change since the moon will have to adjust
its angular velocity to compensate for the new centripetal force.

It should be noted that gravity is simply the effect of curved
absolute space-time and that any orbital changes of the moon would be
more related to the Earth than the moon itself.  Without the mass of
the Earth curving absolute space-time the moon would shoot off
straight into space and most likely give into the curved absolute
space-time created by the Sun ... and orbit it as we currently do.

Gravity is such a weak force that even something a million times
larger than the Earth cannot effect spacetime more powerfully than the
little Earth can on our bodies and the moon.  For the moon to take a
different or more eliptical orbit a major event such as a larger body
colliding into or passing near it would have to occur.

No moon ... no tides ... no light at night.  That's about all the moon
provides us here on Earth so the long term impact would be zero.  Now,
throughout history and evolution you could argue that the light of the
moon was a critical factor for many creatures.

This whole idea of EM (Electro-Magnetism) effecting us on Earth is
based on false assumptions.  If you're looking for a real good reason
for this you should consider sun spots and simple explosions on the
surface of the sun.  These bursts create tons of matter which ride
into our upper atmosphere and produce a hell of a lot of EM pulses. 
Look at the history of how Atom Bomb tests in the Pacific would wreak
havoc on electricity and phone systems around the world.  That as a
movie fan I could buy.  Who cares what's happening on the moon anyway
... but put me under some major EM pulses from sun bursts ... now I'm
interested.