We also have strong evidence that the Moon has a liquid core, and laser ranging has allowed us to determine with great accuracy the rate at which the Moon is gradually receding from the Earth. The first laser ranging retroreflector was positioned on the Moon in 1969 by the Apollo 11 astronauts. By beaming laser pulses at the reflector from Earth, scientists have been able to determine the round-trip travel time that gives the distance between the two bodies at any time to an accuracy of about 3 centimeters. Each corner cube is 3.8 centimeters in diameter.
Corner cubes reflect a beam of light directly back toward the point of origin.
The beam enters the telescope where the eye piece would be, and the transmitted beam is expanded to become the diameter of the main mirror, then bounced off the surface toward the reflector on the Moon. The reflectors are too small to be seen from Earth, so even when the beam is precisely aligned in the telescope, actually hitting a lunar retroreflector array is technically challenging. At the Moon's surface the beam is roughly four miles wide. Scientists liken the task of aiming the beam to using a rifle to hit a moving dime two miles away. Once the laser beam hits a reflector, scientists at the ranging observatories use extremely sensitive filtering and amplification equipment to detect the return signal, which is far too weak to be seen with the human eye.