What would happen to the Earth (or how would life change on Earth) if the moon was hit by a large asteroid?

Question

You always hear about the catastrophic results of an asteroid impacting the Earth, but what if it hit the moon? Would the moon break into pieces and form a ring around Earth, like Saturn's rings? Or, if its orbit changed, what would happen to our tides? Our weather?

Answer 1

It depends on how large the impactor was and how fast it was moving. A large impact would make a new and very large crater on the moon. A couple days later we would have a great meteor shower display here on earth as pieces impacted our atmosphere.

If it was large enough to shatter the moon you could end up with several large pieces orbiting separately. Again, it depends on the size and speed of the impactor. If you broke it up sufficiently, you could form a ring.

That brings us back to what would then happen on earth. The obvious answer is the tides would be much smaller. We would still have tides, but they would be: (1) Caused by the Sun and therefore smaller. (2) They would come at roughly the same time each day.

This would affect a good deal of the marine life that depends on the tidal changes.

Lighting would also change. Reproductive behaviors in a number of animals are goverened by the moon's cycle. It is not known how much the moon's absence would change this.

The days would not grow longer as someone suggested. The opposite is true as the friction overcome in producing the tides takes energy. That energy is coming out of the earth's rotation and the moon's orbiting around the earth. The moon is slowly moving farther away and the earth is slowing down so the days are getting longer. Of course, this is an extremely slow process and you are not going to notice any change. The moon's absence would mean it wouldn't take place.

Earthquakes would not be affected. They are caused by plate tectonics, which is independent of the moon.

If you are interested in the moon, try
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lunar-obse...

Hope this helps

Chuck

Answer 2

Anything can happen depending on the angle of impact and size of the astoriod. But one thing will happen, the tides WILL change and this will affect the little cute jellyfish.... um.... no, this will affect the entire marine eco-system as the changing tide will result in a change in temperature in the various regions of the ocean. Antartica actually had forests on its land but now its just a piece of ice with penguins walking on its surface. The change in tides could warm it up and cause all the ice to melt, sea levels will rise and affect the land eco-system as well. But does that mean Earth is a dangerous place and we should al escape to Mars? NO. This will not happen until about 100 million years from now. We shall see...

Answer 3

If the asteroid failed to shatter the moon which is most likely, then Earth's surface would be showered by hundreds of millions of meteorites. Such an event would probably lead to the end of human civilization and subsequently the extinction of our species.

If the asteroid did shatter the moon, all life on Earth would be wiped out by an unimagineable infall of debris.

Answer 4

were a meteor or an asteroid to hit the earth and the article were the scale of the moon, the earth will explode and products of the earth will fly off into area and there'll no longer be earth and all existence will stop to exist.

Answer 5

Chuck has the answer but Braxton needs to cheer up. Get some counseling man! Talk to someone. There's no need for that much negative thinking.

Answer 6

It would severely alter gravity and ocean tides