What will Happen if We NUKE the MOON?

Question

It is known that Moon's gravity controls tides of the oceans and other ecological systems of our planet. With combined Nuclear arsenal it is now a possibility to remove the Moon from our skies. I wonder how this might affect the Earth?..........Also consider those possibilities; Creating some kind of atmosphere on the moon by exploding some hydrogen or oxygen bombs?........When we get rid of the Moon the Earth's gravity will absorb some of the left over mass particles of the moon and creating Saturn kinda rings around earth, this effect should shift our orbit further away from the sun, creating a cooler habitat and postponing the global warming by aprox 30,000Billion light years.

Answer 1

Well for starters it would send our orbit out of whack,and if that didn't kill us then the tides would flood most of the Earth.Then the debrie would come down and kill the rest of us.In other words I don't think it's a good idea if we nuke the Moon.

Answer 2

First, I don't think our combined nuclear arsenals could make much of an impact on the moon. The moon is smaller than the earth but still pretty darn big. However, if we could destroy the moon, it would be a bad thing for earth since the moon stabilizes the earths orbit and keeps it axis of rotation fairly constant. Without the moon, the earth would wobble around and the seasons would get all screwed up.

Answer 3

Basically the earth would go crazy. The tides would go nuts, and drown every major port city, there would be massive volcanoes, even ones that have been inactive for a looong time will go off. Humans probably wouldn't survive because there wouldn't be enough natural resources left to support us for very long once this happened. Everything would get contaminated due to the ash, which would kill everything, because there would be no fresh air to breathe. Also, there would be major wind storms which would cause more damage. Basically life as we know it would be gone. We would probably all be dead within days. I suggest you watch the documentary 'If we had no moon' by the discovery channel to see what would happen if you had never had a moon.

Answer 4

Back in 1955-65 when the Soviets were winning the space race they had a serious plan to detonate a H bomb on the Moon to demonstrate their supremacy.

The US quickly sought and obtained a treaty against the use of any weapons in space.

The detonation of a H bomb on the moon would create a second sun for several minutes of a magnitude 4 times greater than our Sun. It would expose deeper moon rock strata for study. It would also have intimidated the world, and been a watershed event which would have diluted the success of the Apollo Moon landings.

For a body as close to the Sun as the Earth and Moon to retain an atmosphere it has to have a decent mass, in order to produce a magnetic field large enough to stop the gasses being stripped by solar particle ejecta.

Answer 5

Well, most of what you say was obviously cooked up by your fertile, albeit slightly warped, imagination.

I seriously doubt planetary life would disappear if the moon vanished. The statements about tides being critical to our ecosystem are definite exaggerations. I suppose seabirds would have to work a little harder for their food, but aside from that, I'd say tides create ecological confusion more than anything else (whales beached when the tide recedes, for example).

As for animal behavior being affected by the moon, I can't imagine the moon's disappearance being too catastrophic for them. Coyotes would find something else to bay at. Maybe human females would be the most affected - without the moon for timing, their periods would probably get all screwed up. (OK, so my imagination is also slightly warped, heh heh...)

Answer 6

You grossly over estimate the power of our nuclear arsenal. All the world's nuclear weapons exploding at once in a single place on the Moon would make a good size crater, but not the biggest one on the Moon.

Answer 7

Yeah well many things could go wrong with that. First you might only shift the moon's orbit causing unpredictable tides and weather. Second you might fling the moon away from us, causing a LACK of tides which would destroy the coastline ecosystem. Third, do you really want radioactive chunks of the Moon falling down on the earth? And fouth, even if it did work as planned and our planed moved away from the sun, when would it STOP moving? We'd get farther, farther, and farther away... and it would get colder and colder and colder... It's times like this that people like me are glad that people like YOU aren't in any position of political power.

Answer 8

Hmm, My guess is that animals will go crazy, fish will die, the beaches will become dirty... probably some peices of the moon will pierce earths atmosphere. also the moon does not have enough gravity to hold an atmosphere. lets try to hold off on the moon nuking :)

Answer 9

It is altogether a good question but light years are not units of time! A light year measures distance (one light year is the distance by which an object is displaced when moving at the speed of light for a year)

Answer 10

We'd make a new crater -- and not a particularly big one, either.

No big deal. People really don't understand how little REAL power there are in nuclear weapons when compared to astronomical objects like meteors.