2006-09-04 09:27:14 · 24 answers · asked by Siu02rk 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
The Moon is slowly moving further away from the Earth, at about 1cm a year, so the chances of this happening are remote. However i did read in US magazine Astronomy that at some point the Moon will begin to move towards us, and will be ripped apart by Earths gravity, forming a ring system like that of Saturns.
2006-09-04 12:52:27 · answer #1 · answered by Madfan 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
As the moon is slowly traveling away from the Earth, and it is pretty solidly constructed, this seems unlikely. One possible scenario for making it happen would be if a very large rock hit the moon at the wrong angle, turning it into shrapnel. But it'd have to be a really big rock. At that point, my suspicion is that all the gravel and shrapnel entering the atmosphere would produce a lot of heat energy (the kinetic energy transforms to heat energy on hitting the air), and we'd end up fried husks of our former selves, even if no rocks actually hit the ground.
And then, yes, any survivors will blame the president of the United States, whatever party he belongs to.
(Back when the movies Deep Impact and Armageddon came out, scientists who commented on the movie mentioned that we'd all be dead anyway, just from the heat of all that shrapnel hitting the atmosphere. I'm taking my cue here from them.)
2006-09-04 09:55:01 · answer #2 · answered by Graythebruce 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The moon cannot collapse. But if it flew out of orbit and hit the Earth as a whole (which is not possible because it would go away from Earth) It could possibly knock us out of orbit or smash into us and create a nuclear winter killing us all. There is no telling what could happen.
2006-09-04 09:31:05 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
I cannot visualise the scenario for the collapse of the Moon, but just as it does not land on our doorstep now, it would not do so then. It keeps trying, but when it gets there, the Earth has moved on.
2006-09-04 18:26:43 · answer #4 · answered by Canute 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The result would be much more dramatic than a mass extinction type event. That amount of energy is easily sufficient to melt the entire crust of the planet and send all of the atmosphere off into space. Hello lava lakes, bye bye water and air.
2006-09-04 10:31:34 · answer #5 · answered by Mr. Quark 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
...or maybe the moon would be able to become a planet in our atmosphere. If it didn't destroy us , it could become our twin planet! (some place else to go for vacation!) But how would you keep others from trying to "claim" their share of it. Would we as humans, do the human thing, and start tearing it up?
2006-09-04 10:00:40 · answer #6 · answered by Scorpius59 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Well this won't happen, but if the moon hit the earth we would all die. It would be a cataclysmic event for mankind. It would destroy the earth completely.
2006-09-04 10:56:45 · answer #7 · answered by Ron B. 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
bye bye life as we, and you know it.. there used to be a game with microsoft encarta, and you could try to move the moon to another orbit...i tried for days...and nine time out of ten it smashed into the earth, and the tenth time is dissapeared out of the solar system..before smashing into the earth a couple of minutes later.
i think its fair to say that we depend on the moon almost as much as we depend on the currant bun...
2006-09-04 09:38:54 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Collapse? Like a beach ball or something? Eh? What a bizarre question.
2006-09-04 09:36:59 · answer #9 · answered by Oracle Of Delphi 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The whole planet would be wiped out without a doubt.
2006-09-04 09:31:35 · answer #10 · answered by wolfmettle 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋