ATPEW – Lunar Recession as a Planetary-Scale Test of Flux-Based Gravitation

This paper investigates the secular increase in the Earth–Moon distance as a precision test of the ATPEW (Aldon Theory of a Primordial Energy Wave) framework. Lunar Laser Ranging experiments have measured the Moon’s recession with millimeter accuracy, traditionally attributed to tidal dissipation. ATPEW proposes that, in addition to tidal effects, a small component of this drift may reflect a gradual variation in the local propagation velocity of the primordial energy wave. In this interpretation, orbital expansion corresponds to a long-term phase drift in the Earth–Moon system embedded within a structured energy flux. The same flux-based mechanism responsible for galactic rotation behavior and planetary perihelion anomalies is examined here at a slow dynamical timescale in a weak-field gravitational environment. The work outlines how lunar recession data can serve as a high-precision falsifiability test for ATPEW, linking terrestrial-scale measurements to the broader cross-scale framework previously applied to the Pioneer anomaly and galactic dynamics. This study strengthens the model’s predictive continuity from laboratory-scale atomic phenomena to planetary and astrophysical systems.