Why is the Moon receding from the Earth due to tides? Is this typical for other moons?
It's pretty simple, actually.



The Moon creates tides. Due to tides, the water bulges out towards the Moon (and also on the opposite side).

But the Earth also rotates pretty fast (once a day), faster than the Moon orbits the Earth (once a month). There's friction between the rotating Earth, and the watery bulge created by tides. The rotation of the Earth "wants" to rotate the bulge faster.

In effect, the rotation of the Earth drags the tidal bulge forward - the bulge is always a bit ahead of the Moon. When the Moon is at meridian, the tide is already decreasing.

So there's a bit of extra watery mass on Earth, a little bit ahead of the Moon. This watery bulge interacts gravitationally with the Moon.

This has two effects:


it slows down the rotation of the Earth, gradually sucking energy from it (the Moon pulls the bulge, and therefore the Earth, "back")
that energy is dumped into the Moon's orbital motion, effectively "pulling" it forward


When you dump energy of motion into an orbiting body, it settles into a higher orbit - higher orbit means more energy. Therefore, the transfer of energy from Earth' spin to Moon's orbit gradually makes Moon's orbit larger and larger.

This only happens because the Earth is spinning faster than the Moon orbits it. If the Earth was tidally locked to the Moon (spinning exactly as fast as the Moon orbits it), then no transfer would happen. If the Earth was spinning slower than the Moon's orbit, then the transfer would be opposite (from Moon's orbital motion to Earth's spin).



Note: Counterintuitively, a satellite with more energy actually moves slower, but in a higher orbit. The extra energy goes into raising the orbit, not into making its speed faster. Why this happens exactly is a whole 'nother discussion.