If we didn't have a moon...?

Question

In what way would life on earth be different? Would the earth's orbit be uncontrolled?

Answer 1

1) Earth's oceans would have tides even if we did not have a moon. The Sun is large enough that its gravity would create tides. Oddly enough, the moon tides and sun tides are of almost equal size. The Sun's gravity is more powerful than the Moon's gravity. But the Sun is much farther so it balances out. When the Moon and Sun are on the same side of Earth, the tides are much stronger.

2) Most of the time, the Moon lights the night sky. Without this light, it is doubtful that any of the nocturnal species would be nocturnal. It is certain that the moonlight affected the course of evolution on Earth.

Answer 2

ecosystems wouldnt be thrown off...they would simply have evolved differently due to there being not as severe tides.

The only major change would be the effect on the phsychology of man. The moon is a big clue to what lies outside, its the easiest object to see and with some study it makes it clear that we and everything is moving.

We wouldnt have had a race to go to the moon so we probably wouldnt have experienced many of the advances of the last 40 years. Its also fair to say that perhaps the cold war would have ended differently. The space race was really a proxy for open war, it sorta saved us and at the same time made us smarter through all our sabre rattling.

and yes the orbit would be fine but presumably at some different distance to the sun as the moon was formed during the period of accretion when two smaller objects colided, presumably pushing one closer or further to the sun and the other becoming the moon.

One last thing about uncontrolled orbit, if the orbit were uncontrolled the planet would have either left the solar system, joined the ort cloud or crashed into something else like all the other objects that arent here anymore.

Answer 3

The Earth's orbit would be different, but fine.

If we didn't have a moon, it would never have had a chance to affect our planet. The current belief is that our moon collided with the Earth a long damn time ago. If this didn't happen, we would probably have been a planet with lots of water and rich in elements, but without the tug of the moon to churn things up.

In the early days, the moon was much closer to the Earth and the affect its gravity had on the Earth was much stonger. After the shakeup of the collision, the earth was awash with massive tides that gave rise to the geological complexity of our planet. Now that the moon is farther away, the affect of its gravity is not so extreme.

Many think that life could not have started without the moon's gravitational pull. If so, the earth would probably look a little like mars in that it would be rocky, but there would be water and weather, but it just wouldn't be that tumultuous.

Now if life could start, it wouldn't be too advanced. There wouldn't be tides or storms or weather to help push species to evolve. The climate would be mild. Some think that somewhere between jelly-fish and octopus is as far as life would have evolved.

Peace!

Answer 4

Do you mean if we suddenly lost the moon, or do you mean if we had never had one?

If we had never had a moon, the day would be much shorter (about 6 hours long), because the moon's gravity, acting on the tides, has slowed the earth's rotation over time. Additionally, the earth's axis of rotation would wobble far more than it does now, creating wide variations of the severity of seasons. Basically, the earth would be less hospitable.

Another possibility is that the tides created by the moon are what churned the primordial soup in which life was created. Also, the moon's gravity may be mixing up the liquid interior of the earth, causing radioactive elements to stay near the surface, causing more genetic mutations, and therefore more diversity of species.

The moon also may have shielded the earth from some meteor bombardment in the past.

Answer 5

The orbit wouldn't be uncontrolled, but the moon stabilises the Earth's axial tilt, so the seasons would be a lot more variable. Tides would also be a lot smaller

Answer 6

The ocean tides would be different, which could throw off a lot of ecosystems. The night would be really dark if it weren't for artificial lighting. Some animals wouldn't function correctly if they depended on the moon. The list goes on...

Answer 7

Venus has no moon, and it's orbit is table. same for Mercury

There would be no tides though, which would make it more difficult for life to spread onto dry land.

Answer 8

NASA sure wouldn't be happy. And we'd save more tax dollars.

Answer 9

No tides on oceans. this is the only one i know of..

Answer 10

just no tides