What will happen to the earth if the moon disappears. Without the moon
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We are so accustomed to the Moon that we don’t even think about how much our lives depend on this faithful satellite of the Earth. Let's imagine that the Moon suddenly disappeared. Suddenly some kind of cosmic collapse occurred, or aliens blew it up, simply because they can (and apparently are not very different from humanity). What will happen to our planet without the Moon? Nothing good, namely: Of course, the main task of “protecting” the Earth from asteroids is taken on by 2 giants - Saturn and Jupiter. But the Moon also takes impacts from many asteroids, thereby partially protecting our planet from celestial bombardment. Without the Moon, more celestial rocks would fall to Earth. Thanks to lunar gravity, our planet has ebbs and flows. And although we still have the Sun, the tidal forces generated by the Moon are almost double those generated by the Sun. With the disappearance of the Moon, the tides would also disappear. This would have a devastating effect on marine life, and would ultimately lead to the mass extinction of species.1. Asteroid threat
2. The tides would stop completely
3. The Earth may have a “nervous breakdown”
Due to the loss of lunar gravity that Earth has become accustomed to over the past 4.5 billion years, the planet's core might feel some awkward change. Because of this, a lot of very, very bad things can happen, such as
The natural satellite of our planet and the second brightest object in our sky, the Moon is unique among all the moons in the solar system. Due to its size and proximity to the Earth, it ensures its stability.
But few people know that the Moon is moving away from us. And the farther, the faster. And soon there may come a time when it will no longer be able to stabilize the movement of our planet. Without the Moon, an environmental catastrophe will begin on Earth: water will evaporate and glaciers will melt due to high temperatures. The sea level will rise by several hundred meters, and people will begin to get used to living in conditions of terrible hurricanes and fierce storms.
Without the Moon protecting us, life on the planet would simply disappear.
If the Moon moves away by only ten percent from its current distance to the Earth, which is forty thousand kilometers, then there will be no way back. The rotation of our planet will become unpredictably chaotic, which, in turn, will lead to the death of many forms of life on it.
It cannot be said that the distance of the Moon came as a surprise to scientists. Over the past more than four decades, they have been observing the satellite very closely. In 1968, Apollo astronauts left the first instrument equipped with reflectors on the moon. This was done to more accurately measure the distance to the Moon using lasers. And this turned out to be just the thing.
Thus, currently in the state of New Mexico there is modern equipment that can easily calculate the distance from the Earth to the Moon. It is more difficult to determine at what speed the Moon is moving away. But we managed to find out this too. Decades of tireless work have shown that the satellite is moving away at a rate of four centimeters per year. It would seem that this is a very small value, but it is growing year after year.
Many people underestimate what the Moon is for our planet and what its gravity does for us.
Our satellite has the largest mass relative to its planet in the solar system, and thanks to this mass it can ensure the stability of our planet. The Earth's rotation is determined by its gravity, the force that attracts objects. Its magnitude depends not only on the distance between the planet and its satellite, but also on their masses, and since the mass of the Moon is very large, gravity is correspondingly large. At a distance of 800 thousand kilometers, lunar gravity holds our planet in its orbit. And this is very important for her: the Earth has a stable axis located at an angle of 23 degrees, and therefore, thanks to this slight tilt, the rays of the Sun are distributed evenly throughout the globe, maintaining a relatively narrow range of temperatures on Earth, which is ideal for life.
And as long as the angle of inclination of the earth’s axis exists at this value, earthlings will have a comfortable and constant climate system. And it is this stability that makes it possible for all living things on the planet to live and develop.
The change of seasons familiar to humans is also associated with the tilt of the axis.
And if it were not for the Moon, the angle of inclination of the planet would be unstable, which means there would be no stable sunsets and sunrises, there would be no summer and winter.
Periodically, the angle of the earth's axis changes by two or three degrees in one direction or another, and as a result we observe many natural disasters. And what will happen when, as a result of changes in the magnitude of gravity, the angle of inclination begins to change steadily.
About a hundred thousand years ago, a slight drop in the axis angle changed the angle at which the sun's rays hit the Earth, turning our lush forests into deserts. And, probably, this is what caused the migration of ancient people north from Africa, and in North America and Europe this displacement provoked an ice age that lasted for millennia.
And if scientists consider this ice age to be a global event for our planet, then it is difficult to imagine what would happen to it without the Moon. The earth will change beyond recognition, and climates will become unpredictable, presenting people with sudden temperature fluctuations.
Lunar gravity also affects the tides. Tidal cycles are repeated twice per day: this is how many times the Earth passes through the expansion zone directed towards the Moon. After all, it is lunar gravity, acting on the surface of the sea, that causes the tide.
Without lunar influence, the four-meter rise in water level at the equator will disappear, and the water will move deep into the planet, to the continents, which will naturally lead to a rise in sea level. And first of all, New York and Rio de Janeiro will be hit. The floods will devastate both cities, leaving millions homeless, some of whom will inevitably die. That's how much impact the Moon has on its planet.
And all of the above is not science fiction at all.
The moon, however, is moving away, and when it leaves completely, we - the inhabitants of the planet - will be doomed.
According to the researcher's findings, the Earth and the Moon did not always exist. The moon arose as a result of a cataclysm four and a half billion years ago.
The Earth formed from a protoplanet formed in the Solar System. Then it consisted half of molten mass. One fine day, the still young Earth collided with another planet, close in size to Mars. The impact occurred exactly at an angle of 45 degrees,
And when both planets collided, a giant cloud of rock debris was formed. The cloud was carried away from the Earth to such a distance that it could move around it in orbit. Some fragments of the smaller planet did not fall to Earth, but remained orbiting the Earth, sometimes merging with each other. And as a result, our native Moon began to form very slowly.
Four and a half billion years ago, the Earth rotated four times faster than it does today. The day lasted six hours, and the Earth's axis was tilted only ten degrees.
But over the past time everything has changed. And since the Moon used to be much closer to the Earth, it had a stronger gravitational effect on the tides, so the strength of the tides also changed.
The Moon formed at a distance twelve thousand times closer than it is today. Soon an ocean formed on the planet, and the Moon began to cause friction four times more often. The water was distributed among the small volcanic islands, and tidal friction began to reduce the Earth's rotation speed.
Over the next three billion years, our continents form, and tidal friction slows the planet's motion by up to eighteen hours per day. Half a billion years later, a day lasts 22 hours, adding a fraction of a second each year. And as a result, the day reached 24 hours.
In a billion years, the moon's gravity may slow down the rotation so much that there will be about thirty hours in a day.
However, gravity also acts in the opposite direction. And since the mass of the Earth is greater, its impact on the Moon is stronger. The Earth, in turn, slowed down the axial rotation of the Moon to one revolution per month.
When looking at the Moon, we always see the same side facing us. The Earth and Moon are in the same coupling, tied by gravity.
And it is the gravity of the Earth that has a more noticeable effect on the Moon.
As the Earth rotates, friction on the ocean floor slightly shifts the daily tidal wave from the point directly facing the Moon to the east. This volume of water has such enormous mass that its gravity pushes the Moon forward in its orbit, causing it to move further and further away from the planet. This one is very similar to a pebble tied to a rope: the faster you rotate it, the further away it will be from the person rotating it.
But it is also interesting that the Moon is not only moving away, but also gaining speed. In the Precambrian period, the rate of retreat was equal to 2 centimeters per year, and today's calculations made using lasers record an increase in the rate to 3.5 centimeters.
As the Moon moves away, the days will become longer, which means the seasons will be disrupted, which will turn life on Earth into something completely different.
To more clearly understand what the state of planet Earth will be, just look at its close neighbor - Mars.
Mars and Earth share many characteristics: they formed around the same time. The red color of Mars is given by hematite, a metal that is abundant on Earth. Like Earth, Mars has an ice sheet.
In 2004, scientists learned a lot about the Red Planet by landing on it. Scientists did not find water on the planet, but they found there something similar to former river beds and nodules - small spherical accumulations of fused minerals. On our planet, nodules form when water passes through sedimentary rocks, dissolving minerals, which then form into balls.
Scientists have found large deposits of nodules here on Earth in the desert of southern Utah, trying to understand the past of the planet Mars and the future of our planet. It turned out that the vast Utah desert was once the bottom of the ocean. And if the nodules on Mars developed in a similar way, then there was once a lot of water on Mars, which means that life there was also possible. But today Mars is a huge lifeless and waterless space, and scientists do not deny that if water leaves the Earth, it will become the same.
If the Moon's gravity goes away, a new redistribution of ocean water will begin on Earth. True, unlike Mars, the Earth will retain some of its liquid water due to the magnetic poles, but the water will rise hundreds of meters, wreaking havoc throughout the world.
In addition, without the protection of the Moon, the Earth will fall under the gravity of larger planets, such as Jupiter. The stable tilt of the Earth will be a thing of the past. The planet will begin to tilt on its side, and many coastal areas will be flooded. And over time, the situation will only get worse. Since the speed of the Moon’s retreat is increasing, such a scenario is quite possible.
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You can often hear that the Earth owes its habitability to its satellite, whose gravity holds the axis of our rotation, and that, in turn, ensures the stability of the Earth's climate. Therefore, if the Earth loses the Moon, then everything will go wrong and life on the planet will disappear. But is this really so? Astronomer Jack Lissauer thinks not.
You probably remember that the most ingenious villainous plan of the main character of the cartoon “Despicable Me” was to steal the natural satellite of our planet, that is, the Moon. And after he managed to do this, the complete end of the world came on Earth - the climate deteriorated, the mountains moved, in a word, everything went wrong. This is probably why Gru decided to urgently return the Moon to its place - the villain realized that this celestial body hangs above our heads not only as a decoration of the night sky.
However, all this, as we understand, is purely the imagination of the cartoon’s authors. But do they have any real basis? Of course, it is unlikely that in the next thousand years any of the earth’s inhabitants will be able to repeat such a abduction of the Moon in reality, but our satellite can leave the Earth in some other way - for example, leaving its orbit after being hit by a large celestial body. And then what will happen to our planet, as well as those who live on it?
According to scientists’ calculations, nothing good can be expected after the Moon “departs” for distant lands - without the gravitational influence of the satellite, the Earth’s rotation axis would not shift in the range of 22.0-24.6° (which is observed now and generally throughout the history of our planet ), and would fluctuate from 0 to 85°. It turns out that our planet would simply fall on its side from time to time! Well, if this happens, then, you understand, the polar night and polar day would become the norm not only for the poles, but for all regions of the Earth in general, which would undoubtedly affect the climate. As a result, if the axis deviated to 0°, the northern regions would be uninhabitable due to the cold, and the equator would be forever overheated and, accordingly, also lifeless.
However, how close is the picture painted by such a model to what could happen in reality if the Moon leaves the vicinity of the Earth? Having asked this question, astronomer Jack Lissauer from the NASA Research Center in Ames (USA), who, by the way, at one time discovered the first two satellites of the planet Uranus, decided to build his own model of this hypothetical catastrophe. Moreover, the lifetime of the Earth without its satellite in this model was determined to be 4 billion years - that is, as long as life exists on our planet. And what do you think, no catastrophic scenarios ever arose in this model - over all four billion years, the tilt of the earth’s axis did not exceed 40 degrees and did not fall below 10 degrees.
“If the Earth did not have a Moon, the tilt of its axis of rotation - and thus the climate - would vary much more than it does now, this is true. But nothing as bad as previous models showed us would happen. Even if we take such a small geologically measured period as the time required for the development of complex life, then even during this period the changes could be, say, ten degrees in both directions, but no more. And this would not lead to sudden climatic changes that could threaten the existence of primitive living organisms,” Dr. Jack Lissauer comments on the research results.
By the way, the scientist notes, if the Earth, deprived of a satellite, had in addition a retrograde rotation (that is, the Sun would rise for earthlings in the west), which should sometimes be found among rocky exoplanets of other systems, the fluctuations in the tilt axis would be even less. This is explained by the fact that in this case the rotation of the planet around its axis would go in the direction opposite to the one in which it travels around the star. Thus, says Dr. Lissauer, Earth-like exoplanets that lack natural satellites should not immediately be automatically classified as lifeless - especially if they have a retrograde rotation.
However, the scientist adds, long-term climate fluctuations associated with stronger fluctuations of the earth’s axis in the absence of the Moon would indeed take place, but they cannot in any way be called catastrophic. In the end, we must not forget that even a strong axis tilt (leading to the “spreading” of the polar night and day) simultaneously with a cooling effect due to an increase in albedo (surface reflectivity) in the unlit hemisphere, which would ensure the formation of a large amount of ice during the polar night, would increase the efficiency of the planet's absorption of sunlight. And this should give a heating effect - at least that’s what many models say.
Almost every person at least once in his life thought about what would happen if the Moon disappeared and how it affected earthly life. Scientists have not yet proven even half of what is considered true by the people. But on some points everyone agrees unanimously. Most of all, the Earth's satellite affects its inhabitants at the time of the full moon.
Full moon
Many have heard that most children are born during the period when the moon is full. In addition, according to some data, it is at this time that most crimes are committed than usual. But no serious research or statistics have been conducted on this matter. Although they still tried to calculate the influence of the satellite on these factors. For example, from 1985 to 1990, statistics on the birth of babies were compiled in France. According to the results, it turns out that during the full moon the increase in babies is only 0.14 percent, and this is very little to prove any theories.
Also, the question about fertility, when the Americans asked themselves in heaven. The count was conducted in North Carolina from 1997 to 2001. But the results were about the same as in France.
Ebbs and flows
It was possible to scientifically confirm the influence of the satellite only in relation to the tides and ebbs of water on Earth. The level of the ocean and other bodies of water directly depends on the location of the Sun and Moon. This is due to the fact that the gravity of celestial bodies acts on moisture, raising it. But if in the ocean this is noticeable with the naked eye, then in small lakes the tides are not so noticeable.
Owls and full moon
Scientists have been able to record that depending on the phase of the moon, some animals begin to behave in a special way. For example, owls hunt more actively during the full moon. There is a hypothesis that this is due to the level of light.
The Moon as such does not glow itself, it only reflects the light of the Sun, and a weak light appears on the Earth. It is quite enough to see the area better. Therefore, scientists believe that the light of the moon gives owls an advantage in hunting.
Earth Stabilization
There is also a hypothesis about what influence the Moon has on the Earth. It says that thanks to our satellite, the planet is more stable. Considering the size of the planet, this satellite is quite large. The diameter of the Earth is 12,742 kilometers, and that of the Moon is 3,474 kilometers. Scientists believe that this is a cosmic rarity, because besides Earth, only Pluto has such a satellite. And, in their opinion, it is thanks to the Moon that our planet has such an axis of inclination and has seasons.
Some scientists, answering the question of what will happen if the Moon disappears, say that in a couple of million years the rotation of the planet will change. Because of this, the climate may also change, it will become less favorable for the development of life. It is believed that the Moon also influenced the number of hours in the earth's day. For example, 400 million years ago the Earth rotated every 22 hours.
Would there be life without the Moon?
Scientists do not say anything definite about whether our Earth would exist as it does now if it did not have a satellite. They adhere to the theory that our planet is unique. That is, many circumstances led to the emergence of life on Earth. Just water or the atmosphere is not enough for its origin.
On our planet, all this happened simultaneously, including a stable climate and stabilization of the axis tilt with the help of a satellite. That is, scientists cannot determine whether life would exist without the Moon or not. And it is unknown whether we overestimate the tides or, conversely, do not understand their large-scale impact on the well-being of the Earth.
Appearance of the Moon
According to scientists, as soon as a person visited the Moon, the mystery of its origin should have been immediately solved. But in reality it turned out quite the opposite. Scientists still cannot give an exact answer to the question of how exactly our satellite appeared. Moreover, there are now as many as five theories of its origin.
The most plausible of them is a collision. Approximately 4.4 billion years ago, the Earth experienced a collision with another cosmic body. They named him Theia. And when this planet, which was theoretically close to the Earth, gained enough weight, they collided. This entailed practically turning the Earth inside out, and from there a piece of plasma separated and gradually turned into the Moon. And it was thanks to the satellite that the water that appeared on Earth slowly spread across the planet. Therefore, in this case, the answer to the question of what will happen if the Moon disappears is quite negative. This theory suggests that the Earth would experience drought and would not be as fertile and viable as it is now.
Russian and American theories
Modern Russian science is more inclined to another theory, that the Moon is particles of a dust cloud that the young Earth did not attract to itself. Since the composition of the satellite is very similar to that of Earth, this theory has not yet been refuted.
But according to Darwin's son George, the Moon is a broken piece of the Earth due to its rapid rotation in the old days. It came off near the equator, where the Pacific Ocean is now located. But the fact is that when the Moon appeared, the pool had not yet formed, and the rotation of the Earth was slower than necessary for the detachment of matter. Therefore, this hypothesis was refuted.
There are two more theories about the appearance of the Moon. The first suggests that it was a separate planet, but over time the Earth pulled it towards itself. But this does not explain the similarity of the composition of the Moon with the Earth's mantle. But the second theory explains this, but is also unlikely. It appeared in the 1970s in America. Scientists have suggested that the Earth evaporated due to intense heating, and from substances thrown into space, the Moon was formed. But there is no evidence that our planet has ever warmed to such high temperatures.
Conclusion
None of the scientists can say exactly what will happen if the Moon disappears. Of course, it can be blown up, it can move away from the planet, and in general anything can happen. The only thing that is known for sure is that the climate on the planet will change, and living conditions may become worse. But before this happens, a lot of time must pass. Therefore, we are unlikely to know the answer to this question. So in general there is nothing to worry about, unless the military decides to test a bomb on our satellite.
With the release of the movie Oblivion, many wondered: what would happen if Earth's Moon was destroyed? “I don’t know,” many answered themselves. - “What will happen when the Moon is destroyed?” Let's not guess whether the chicken crossed the road or not, but just try to answer this question.
The first thing that comes to the mind of scientists is how will the Moon be destroyed? If, for example, the Death Star is nevertheless built and it randomly breaks the Moon into pieces, they will fly in the same orbit, and therefore have the same gravitational influence on the Earth. There will be few changes. This is not a black hole in the solar system.
Still from the movie "Oblivion". In the background is the moon destroyed by aliens.
Yes, we would no longer see lunar phases at night, but we would see a glittering cloud of debris that would likely be much brighter than the full Moon since there would be more surface area reflecting light. There are even some astronomers who hate this new clutter in the night sky in advance.
But if the Moon were completely stolen (or sold, as Heinlein was), gravity would change significantly. The tide schedule could be thrown away.
Ocean tides will occur, but the water will follow the sun, so you'll probably see big waves all over the place day after day. Some fishermen would appreciate this.
Since tidal forces also affect the Earth's core, there is sure to be some turmoil within. Earthquakes. Several severe volcanic eruptions. Something like that. But California, Japan and Crimea will not go under water.
However, the problem will get worse in the long run. Now the Earth's rotation axis slowly wobbles every 26,000 years, like a top, as it feels the gravitational rope of the Sun. Due to wobble, the North Star does not always point exactly north. Experts agree that the Moon is a kind of shock absorber for this vibration, preventing it from becoming completely loose.
It is quite possible that, left without the Moon, the Earth will wobble wildly, like Mars, for example. The Red Planet's wobble is so extreme that it may be causing its climate to change. If the same thing happens on Earth, the blue planet could become a real monster and slightly lose its position for rainbow habitat.
Without the Moon, the tilt of the Earth's axis could change - from the current 22-25 degrees to an angle of zero to 85 degrees. Zero will eliminate the seasons, and an 85-degree flip will put the Earth on its side. If this happened, the current crisis we call global warming would be a pleasant tea party compared to the potential one.
Fortunately, the loosening of the earth's axis will affect us only after many millions of years.
And if we don’t die of boredom during this time, we will have to silently watch as the disappearance of the Moon destroys our culture and art, animals, music, poetry, photography and so on.
A natural question arises. We will survive if the alien invaders destroy the Moon first. But why do they need this?
