Sgushchenkin, there hasn’t been such a collection of nonsense for a long time, starting with the title...
15. “The moon helps the planet maintain its axis of rotation at one, its usual angle of 22-24 degrees.”
What helps Mars maintain such an inclination? A brick in the shape of a skinny Phobos? What about the giant Saturn? His poor icicles? Why did Uranus turn on its side? Did the moon fly by?
14. “Without the Moon in the sky, the tilt of the Earth's axis will change quite quickly, which will lead to huge changes on our planet in a very short time.”
Will not change.
13. "Without the Moon, the Earth's rotation speed will change. The Moon slows it down, taking part of the Earth's rotation energy for its own orbit."
Will not change. The Moon slows down the Earth's rotation, creating a tidal hump on the planet, including in the crust. Without this tidal hump, the rotation will stabilize and the speed will not change. Almost. The sun also creates a tidal hump, only smaller. So the Earth will continue to slow down its rotation.
"abrupt disappearance of the Earth's gravitational force"
What, what?! Gravity on Earth can decrease only in three cases: if the Earth loses mass while maintaining its radius, or if the Earth is inflated in all directions while maintaining its mass.
12. “If the Moon disappears, we will gradually see volcanoes awakening - one after another, somewhere within a couple of years.”
If the Moon disappears, tidal deformations of the earth's crust will disappear and along with them lithospheric tectonics and volcanism will disappear.
11. “The Moon is very important for the development of science and its loss would be irreparable.”
The moon has already been studied far and wide. It has practically no scientific value, and no industrial value either.
10. "There will be no more tides"
They will. From the sun. But 3 times less than from the Moon.
9. "Let's imagine that the Moon exploded..."
Let's imagine that grandma suddenly has eggs. What will happen to grandfather's sexual orientation?
8. “The gravitational pull of the Moon causes a bubble of water to “swell” around the middle part of the Earth. Without the Moon, the bubble will burst and you can imagine, where will he go water."
I'm just shocked. Does anyone else know about a bubble of water around the middle of the Earth?
7. The Earth's rotation speed will increase
For those especially gifted who repeat this point a second time, the speed of the Earth’s rotation will not change.
6. "protects from asteroids... if there is no Moon, then the next such collision is much more likely to happen to the Earth."
On the contrary, it was the Earth that had just cleared everything possible from asteroids around its orbit. And in the process of “clearing”, it served as an accelerator for asteroids, which hit the Moon with even greater speed and eagerness, experiencing a gravitational maneuver in the earth’s gravitational field.
5. "The tilt of the Earth's rotation axis will change"
One more repetition? Will not change.
4. “still, many people involved in agriculture check the phases of the Moon - when to plant what, when to fertilize, when to harvest, etc. Especially small farmers who are simply accustomed to doing this. If the Moon disappeared - and what would they, poor people, will they do it? We'll have to close the farms"
Well, of course. It's easier to close a farm than to buy a calendar.
Maybe your periods will finally stop?
3. "Those who love to look at the night sky or take pictures of it will get the chance to see bright stars without induced moonlight, in its original form."
Well, yes, after all, just looking at the sky on a moonless night is not destiny for many... WHAT TO DO
2. "The werewolves won't have anything to howl about!"
Don't pour any more condensed milk!
1. “But in this case, these will be wars over garbage waste, and very cruel ones - as always, when people have nothing left to lose.”
For almost a full 4.5 billion years of our history solar system The Earth was alone and revolved around the Sun. Our giant lunar companion is larger and much more massive than any other moons compared to the planets they orbit. In its full phase, the Moon shines brightly at night, and throughout its history it has been associated with phenomena such as madness (or sleepwalking), animal behavior (howling at the Moon), agriculture (the full moon before the autumnal equinox) and even women's menstrual cycles . Its destruction would be catastrophic, but it would also change our world forever in some incredibly interesting ways.
1) When the Moon is destroyed, its fragments will fly towards the Earth, but this may not lead to the destruction of life. Imagine a weapon so deadly that it would be able to gravitationally release the moon and tear it apart. This will require a piece of antimatter the size of an average asteroid (about a kilometer in diameter), and then its parts will scatter in all directions. If the explosion is weak enough, the fragments will form one or more moons; and if he is strong, then there will be nothing left at all; and if it is of the right strength, it will create a ring system around the Earth. Over time, these lunar fragments will be knocked out of orbit by the Earth's atmosphere and a series of collisions will occur.
However, these impacts will not be as destructive as in the case of asteroids or comets, which we fear so much today. While chunks of the Moon may be massive, dense, and perhaps even larger than the dinosaur-killing asteroids, they will still have much less energy. Asteroids or comets colliding with the Earth will move at speeds of 20, 50 or even more than 100 kilometers per second, while lunar fragments will move at a speed of only 8 kilometers per second, and they will only enter our atmosphere tangentially. However, pieces of the Moon falling to Earth will have destructive force, but this force during a collision will be only 1% of the total energy in a collision with an asteroid of comparable size. And if the falling pieces are small enough, then humanity will easily survive their impact.
2) The night sky will naturally be much brighter. Once the Moon and all its remnants disappear, the second brightest object in the Earth's sky will completely cease to exist. Although the Sun is naturally 400 thousand times brighter than full moon At perigee, it is, in turn, 14 thousand times brighter than the next brightest object in the sky - Venus. If you take the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, the full Moon can take you from number 1 - the purest and most natural dark sky of all possible options- right up to the 7th or 8th level, thus outshining even the brightest stars. Without the Moon, there will be no interference with clear, dark skies on any day of the year.
3) There will be no more eclipses. Are we talking about a solar eclipse - partial, total or annular - or lunar eclipses, when this natural satellite of the Earth falls into our shadow, there will be no more eclipses in any case. An eclipse requires the presence of three objects and their specific alignment - the Sun, a planet and the moon of that planet. When the moon passes between the Sun and a planet, a shadow may be cast on the surface of the planet (total eclipse), the moon may cross the surface of the sun (an annular eclipse), or it may eclipse only part of the planet's surface (total eclipse). sunlight(partial eclipse). However, if there is no moon at all, then nothing like this happens. Our natural satellite will never be able to fall into the Earth's shadow if it does not exist, and thus eclipses will be done away with.
4) The length of the day will become constant. You may not have given it much thought, but the Moon provides a negligible frictional force to the rotating Earth, and as a result, its rotation speed gradually decreases. We may lose just a second here or there over many centuries, but they add up over time. Our modern 24-hour day had only 22 hours during the time of the dinosaurs and only 10 hours several billion years ago. And in four million years, we won't be adding any more days to our calendar because the rotation rate will slow down and the length of the day will continue to increase. However, without the Moon all this will stop. We will have a 24-hour day every day until the sun runs out of energy and goes out.
5) Our ebbs and flows will be insignificant. The tides present interesting, significant differences for those of us who live close to the coast, especially in a bay, narrow inlet, channel or other area where water accumulates. The tides on Earth are mainly due to the influence of the Moon, while the Sun has only a minor effect on the tides we see today. During the full moon and new moon, when the Sun, Earth and Moon line up in a certain line, we experience the highest spring tide - this is the time of the largest possible difference between the level of high tide and low tide. When they are at right angles to each other during the quarter moon, we have the lowest water level - and this is the moment of least change. The spring tide is twice its lowest level, but without the Moon the tides will be very small and only a quarter of the current maximum level.
6) Our axial tilt will be unstable. This is an unpleasant thing. The Earth rotates on its axis at an inclination of 23.4 degrees relative to our orbital plane around the Sun (this phenomenon is called obliquity or obliquity). You might think that this has little to do with the Moon, but over tens of thousands of years this tilt varies - from 22.1 degrees to 24.5 degrees. The moon represents a stabilizing force, while worlds without large moons - like Mars - eventually experience tilt changes tens of times greater. On Earth, if there is no Moon, our deviation, according to existing estimates, will at times exceed 45 degrees, and this will make us a world that will spin on our sides. The poles will always be cold, but the equator will not necessarily be warm. Without the Moon to stabilize our position, glacial period will be distributed throughout various parts our world every few thousand years.
And finally:
7) We will no longer have a convenient launch pad to fly to the rest of the universe. As far as can be judged, humanity is the only species that has willingly entered the surface of other worlds. Part of what was done between 1969 and 1972 can be explained by the fact that the Moon is so close to the Earth. The distance is only 380 thousand kilometers, and the rocket can cover this path in about three days, and a flight to the Moon and back at the speed of light will take only 2.5 seconds. As for the next closest objects - Mars and Venus - the flight to them will last several months, the flight there and back - more than a year, and the communication signal will travel this distance for a large number of minutes.
Going to the Moon is the easiest "training trip" we could ask of the Universe if our goal were to explore the rest of the Solar System. Perhaps someday we will use it again, as well as all that it gives to the Earth - and this is not such a distant time.
Ethan Siegel - astrophysicist and writer,
he is also the founder and primary writer of the blog Starts With a Bang.
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 wouldn't watch anymore lunar phases at night, but saw a glittering cloud of debris that would likely have been much brighter than the full Moon since there would have been a larger surface area reflecting the 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 term. 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?
Its presence in the sky seems so solid that many may be surprised by the news that the Moon is moving away from us: by about 4 centimeters every year.
Do you remember the British TV series Space: 1999? The Moon is thrown out of Earth's orbit after the explosion of radioactive waste that was stored on its surface. The series tells about the adventures of the crew space station"Alpha", which, together with our satellite, is carried away into the distance.
But I was always interested in the question: what will happen to the Earth then?
We will lose a strong ally who has been with us almost since the beginning of the solar system. Our union started off stormy. The Moon arose as a result of a gigantic cosmic collision: the Earth collided with heavenly body, twice the mass of Mars. But if this catastrophe had not happened, perhaps globe There would be no life now, or at least it would look different. The first single-celled organisms that appeared on our planet about 3.5 billion years ago most likely used the help of the Moon. At this time, it should have looked spectacular in the sky, since it was very close to the Earth, and its gravity caused more powerful tidal waves than today. Thanks to this, water could further penetrate the land and wash minerals into the ocean, which fertilized the primeval “soup” and made it more suitable for nascent life. Thanks to the ebb and flow of the tides, flat flooded spaces appeared, which were drained from time to time and, billions of years later, became a testing ground for the first organisms trying to reach land.
Accelerating Earth
The Moon is moving away from the Earth due to the force of our planet's rotation. Tides caused by the Moon hit the continents and slow down the Earth's rotation, lengthening the day by about 2 seconds every 100 thousand years. Scientists believe that 4.5 billion years ago the young Moon was only 25 thousand kilometers above the Earth (now this distance is approximately 400 thousand kilometers), and there were only 6 hours in a day. 600 million years ago they were already, according to the geological traces left by the tides on the rocks in Australia, two hours shorter than today.
If for billions of years there had not been a large and heavy satellite near us, which takes away energy from the Earth, it would rotate faster. Day and night would follow each other, as if in fast motion. How to live with so little time during the day? On the other hand, the working day would become shorter, and there would be many more days in the year, because the time of revolution around the Sun would remain unchanged. But if you have already started planning, how would you spend these additional days, do not hurry. After all, the Earth would rotate faster, but, apparently, without people. Why?
In the early 90s of the last century, Jacques Laskar from the Paris Observatory, together with his colleagues, calculated that the Moon plays an important role for our civilization: it stabilizes the tilt of the Earth’s rotation axis. Now its angle of inclination to the orbital plane is 23.5 degrees, thanks to which we can enjoy four seasons in our latitudes. Moreover, what is especially important, this angle is quite stable: during a cycle of approximately 40 thousand years, the earth’s axis deviates by 1-2 degrees.
Without the Moon, the gravity of powerful Jupiter would quickly upset this balance. The axis of rotation would change its position in a chaotic manner ranging from 0 to 85 degrees: with such an inclination, it would practically lie on the plane of its orbit, the poles would be in the position of the equator and vice versa. And this would cause radical climate change. Our planet would be covered with a thick layer of ice every few million years, which would make the development of evolution and the emergence of highly organized organisms almost impossible. Surely intelligence could never emerge. Mars became a dead planet, most likely due to the fact that it did not have a large satellite: the associated fluctuations in the angle of its rotation axis caused climate changes.
The moon surrounded us with care, and when Homo sapiens grew stronger, our companion became for him one of the first chronometers, measuring the passing time. The regular phases of the moon inspired primitive cultures to create the first calendars. Thanks to it, we divide the year into 12 months, because our satellite needs about a month (more precisely 29 and a half days) to go through all the phases from new moon to full moon and the next new moon. IN Polish language The moon used to be called simply “month” (“miesiąc”, in modern language— Księżyc, — approx. translation.).
The proximity of the satellite nourished science fiction. The first work of science fiction in history was the novel “The Dream,” written in the 17th century, about a trip to the Moon, which was based on the scientific knowledge of that time. Its author was the brilliant astronomer, physicist and mathematician Johannes Kepler. Two hundred years later, Jules Verne (“From the Earth to the Moon”) and H.G. Wells("The First Men on the Moon"). These works excited the imagination of visionaries, designers, inventors and rocket creators. Dreams of going to the Moon in the early 20th century led to the first rocket-powered vehicle designs and concepts space travel, which became a reality after the Second World War.
Scientists were also fascinated by the Moon. Modern science I owe her a lot. When Galileo pointed a telescope into the sky for the first time in history in 1609, he first saw the Moon. In the treatise Sidereus Nuncius, he describes what he saw. Firstly, he notes that its surface is not flat, as philosophers previously thought, but resembles an earthly landscape. He noticed mountains, valleys and dark spots that he thought were seas. Other scientists followed in Galileo's footsteps, creating the first maps of the Moon. One of the very first was published in 1647 by Jan Hevelius in his work “Selenography”. He noted lunar mountains, seas, bays, continents, islands, lakes. Isaac Newton created a theory universal gravity, when, watching a falling apple, I realized that the same force that attracts the apple keeps the Moon in low-Earth orbit. The first test of this theory was the calculation of this force at the height of the Moon.
Einstein's ally
Several hundred years later, the Moon helped test Albert Einstein's theory of gravity. In 1919, a scientific expedition set out to observe the complete solar eclipse in Africa to find out whether the theoretically predicted bending of light rays in the solar field exists. Thanks to the Moon covering the solar disk, Einstein achieved immortal fame and became a world celebrity.
By the way, eclipses. It is impossible not to mention them. Without our satellite, we would not be able to observe this unique phenomenon on the scale of the galaxy, and perhaps the universe. We wouldn't have the biggest performances in history at fresh air, which are often attended by millions of people.
The size of the lunar disk in the sky accidentally turned out to be almost identical to the size of the solar one. Such a confluence of circumstances has not occurred on any planet in our system, and therefore it is impossible to see such a phenomenon there when a star is completely closed, but its crown and the plasma prominences rising on it remain visible. “Everyone should see this with their own eyes at least once in their life,” writes David H. Levy in his book “Sky. Instructions for use."
No matter how many eclipses you've seen, there can never be too many. Dependence on eclipses is worse than dependence on nicotine, alcohol and gambling... Thank you, Luna!
InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively foreign media and do not reflect the position of the editorial board of InoSMI.
The moon can be perceived as a friendly neighbor, who, nevertheless, keeps to himself and does not force himself on friends. We quite like our neighbor, but if he moved, we would have to worry about what might happen in his absence.
When the Earth was very young (30 million years old) and was a clot of molten lava, a giant cosmic body hit the Earth, capturing part of its hot mantle, and ricocheted back into space. This is how the Moon was formed.
A billion years ago, the Moon ceased to be geologically active. But this does not mean that the Earth's satellite does not perform important functions.
1. Tides and ocean height
Perhaps the most obvious sign absence of the Moon there will be changes in tides. If the moon did not influence our oceans, the tides would be three times stronger. The Sun, of course, also influences tidal changes, but it does not have the same powerful force as the Moon. The moon also affects the height of the ocean; The Moon's gravitational pull causes the water to "swell" around the middle of the earth. In other words, there is less water at the poles than at the equator. If there were no moon, the bulge of water would disappear, heading towards the shallower poles.
2. Earth's rotation
Every day, the Moon slows down the Earth's rotation by a tiny amount of time. Dividing "microseconds per year" by 365 days gives you this amount of time. If we didn't have the Moon, which slows down the planet's rotation, we would "spin" to a six-hour day. While this may seem funny, keep in mind that a six-hour day can come with consequences. various kinds. Firstly, winds and storms would increase. Secondly, it would likely affect the development of life on our planet. Given a few short hours of daylight and darkness, who knows how plants and animals would have developed further.
3. Earth's axis
And the Moon also influences the Earth's axis, helping us maintain a graceful tilt of 23 degrees, thanks to which we have a fairly good climate and living conditions. Without the Moon, we would risk leveling out or falling on our side. At an upright position (almost zero tilt) we would see the sun for just a few minutes - like Uranus, with its 97 degree tilt - or we could get 42 years of continuous sunshine, followed by 42 years of darkness.
