what happens if Moon disappears?
Hello all ,
The moon is a barren lifeless rock but it plays a surprisingly important role in the story of life on Earth .
what happens ?
- Global tsunamis decimate coastlines around the world as ocean waters surge toward the gravitational pull of the Sun .
- Changing weather patterns & Destroying Food supplies
- Eventually Earth's axis tilts wildly turning the poles into Tropical jungles & the equator into frigid wastelands .
- New species emerge while others go extinct
How Important ?
Now let's remove it from sky and find out
- strange things start to happen almost immediately people on the coast are the first to notice the change .
Image source
This would probably create something like a Tsunami a tidal wave which would be very dramatic indeed .
It's well known that the moon controls Earth's tides , As it orbits around us its mass tugs our oceans toward it causing a tidal bulge on the side of the planet nearest the moon and through a strange quirk of gravitational physics physics it forms a second bulge on the side farthest away from the moon .
Few people realize the Sun also plays a role in governing the tides but because it's 400 times farther from us than the moon its gravitational influence on the oceans is relatively about 1/3 of the total effect .
But when moon disappeared Sun is in control
This makes the water rushes toward the gravity of the Sun in a massive global tsunami .The force of the waves depends on where the moon is in relation to the Sun when it disappears.
If the moon vanished at full moon or at new moon that's when the moon is lined up with the earth and the Sun .
The lunar tidal bulges would shrink the solar tidal bulges in the same spots and the extra water from the lunar bulges would quickly flow to other parts of the globe.
But there's an even more dramatic possibility if the moon vanished when it's a quarter moon either first quarter or last quarter then the moon's tidal bulge is not in the same place as the Sun tidal bulge and so I expect you would see a very quick motion of Earth's oceans from the lunar tidal bulge to the solar tidal budge .
The biggest impact on our planet would be the changes to Earth's steady tilt a unique feature that gives us our four regular seasons
Now , if moon disappears :
Without the moon our axis begins fluctuating erratically over several hundred thousand years the gravitational pull from other planets in the solar system starts wreaking havoc on earth our stable seasons shift dramatically as different parts of our planet tilt radically toward the Sun during some periods and away at others as soon as you get rid of the moon.
Fact :
If the moon had never existed earth would be unrecognizable to anyone today .
Until my next post happy steem :)
very interesting.. I have a whole new appreciation for the moon!
do you know there is a history when earth has no moon ? thinking to write about it @rickrosenburg
No moon would be weird, I like the moon.