Question: what would happan if the moon was hit by something and was destroyed?

Asked by scope7 to Bev, Posty, Edward, Kate, Nathan on 16 Jun 2011.

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  1. Photo: David PostDavid Post
    answered on 16 Jun 2011:

    That would be fairly catastophic! A lot of the moon would rain down on the Earth as asteroids and meteorites and cause wide spread devastation.

    In fact, a lot of astronomers think that billions of years ago, the Earth collided with a planet about the size of Mars which actually created the Moon in the first place. That would have destroyed pretty much everything on the planet.

    Also, on a much smaller issue, we wouldn’t have any tides any more because they are caused by the Moon. The sun also causes some very small tides, but most of them come from the Moon.

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  2. Photo: Kate PattersonKate Patterson
    answered on 16 Jun 2011:

    Hi scope7
    That’s a good question. The moon is something we just take for granted – what does it actually do apart from look pretty at night?
    Well, as Posty said, it controls the tides. The sun also controls the tides a little, but not as much as the moon. Without tides the ocean would not get enough oxygen, or be able to clean / stir itself up, so heaps of the sea life would suffer. Also, some rivers and lakes and entire towns that rely on the tides or flooding to function would dry up.
    And… nocturnal animals would have a much harder time finding food and escaping from predators at night if there was no moonlight.

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  3. Photo: Edward ShinEdward Shin
    answered on 16 Jun 2011:

    And aside from the devastation David mentioned (which would probably be worse than what killed off the dinosaurs), the changes in Earth’s climate that happen naturally over millions of years (as opposed to the man-made climate change) would become much much more extreme, because the moon stabilises the Earth’s rotation and orbit).

    Without the moon, the history of Earth would have been very very different.

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