darkside of the moon....?

Question

Is it possible that humans have tested weapons of mass destruction on the moon in the past . . . i.e. nuclear weapons? If so, is that why the far side has so many craters? I understand the universe is a violent place, which leaves me pondering why earth has had only one mass extinction that we know of due to deep impact. I mean, if the craters on the moon are due to meteors then surly more than one should or will hit earth that will/should have cause noticable damage...weather, movement, tilt, etc. Also, why dont earths gravity pull in meteors like other planets do?

thank you to the ppl that answered seriously. i really appreciate it!

:-)

Answer 1

The dark side of the Moon has more craters because it faces away from the Earth, which is where asteroids and meteoroids come from. For a bolide to strike the near side of the Moon, it would need to either come from the Earth itself (which could only happen if the Earth itself were the target of a large impact that sent of fragments, which is how meteorites have arrived on Earth from Mars) or pass between the Earth and Moon first, a significantly rare event.

There may have been more than one impact-caused mass extinction. The Permian-Triassic extinction event (251 million years ago) was possibly caused by an impact that left a crater in either Australia or Antarctica. The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event, which famously ended the dominance of dinosaurs on Earth, is widely believed to have been caused by an asteroid impact that left the Chicxulub Crater in the Yucatan Peninsula.

Small meteorites do hit the Earth on a regular basis. But the Earth's atmosphere burns up many bodies before they strike the surface, a form of protection that the Moon lacks. The Moon also acts to a certain extent as a shield for the Earth, such that a certain portion of incoming bodies hit the Moon instead. And while the Earth does tend to pull in passing bodies, Jupiter sits further out in the Solar System and is much more massive, causing it to pull in many asteroids and comets that might otherwise have eventually hit the Earth.

Answer 2

Why test a nuke on the far side of the moon, you'd practically need a separate mission to observe the results asuming you could find the detonation site and differentiate it from a natural crater. Too hard, just destroy a region of Earth for your testing.



Actually there are dozens if not hundreds of craters across the Earth. There have also been multiple extinction level events.

The dinosaurs 65,000,000 years ago is just the most popular.

But about 250 million years ago, All life was almost wiped out by an even larger event. About every 26,000,000 years or so the planet get's hit by an asteroid or comet large enough to do serious damage to whatever is alive at the time.

This is speculated to be because the solar system orbits the galactic core and passes through a more dense region of space along the galactic axis every 26mil yrs., This disturbs comets in the region of space known as the Oort cloud sending comets / asteroids in towards the Sun.

As a point of interest the planet does pull in meteors and smaller objects every day, About once every 5 or 10 years an object large enough to make the local news shows up , and scientists guess about once every 100 years a comet/asteroid enters the atmosphere that causes significant regional damage. , the 1908(year?) - Tunguska event for example.

Answer 3

A vast majority of the craters on the moon's surface were made a few billion years ago when it was young. Earth too likely was hit even more often (because it was bigger) back then. Since then though Earth has maintained an active geology which tends to resurface the planet over time. The moon has not had an active geology for a very long time.

As far as testing weapons of mass destruction on the moon, it is highly unlikely. Sending anything to the moon is expensive, so I really have no idea why we would bother. Not only that I believe the Outer Space Treaty that the US is part of forbids such things.

Answer 4

Why would we do that? We'll just pollute our own planet - its a lot cheaper that way! THink about what the testing is supposed to do. Its not about making a big boom. They have to measure and record all sorts of stuff. Its almost always about money (or sex).
There are other mass extinction events, we think. Proof is another matter. We THINK that the moon was MADE from a collision with the Earth!
Our nice thick atmosphere burns up a lot of the meteors and then we have a very active ecology and geology - so erosion and biology make it tricky to see our craters, but we do have them.

Answer 5

Others have answered the question well...No, there have not been nuclear weapon tests on the moon. Meteors hit the earth all the time...We're just lucky that none of them are REALLY big.

One point....

You are refering to the FAR side of the Moon, not the Dark side. The far side of the moon is the side that faces away from us, the dark side is the side that faces away from the sun. Think about it. The moon's phases mean that the dark side of the moon changes as the moon goes around the earth--During the new moon we can't see the moon because we are looking at the dark side!

Answer 6

Yes anythings possible, however tell tale signs of a neuclear explosion would've been picked up by astrologers and scientists who have marked out every crater on the moon - because we havent heard anything suggests this theory highly unlikely

Meteorites enter the Earths atmosphere all the time however most disintigrate (shooting stars) and burn up. However some do make it to ground and Meteorilogists pay BIG BUCKS to aquire these.

In the past some big meteorites have hit the Earth with a similar force and impact you see on the moon. Should one hit today it would mean the end of life on Earth - as theorists suggests one may have been responsible for killed off the dinosaurs

Answer 7

well, first of all, there have been no nuclear tests on the moon at all. and actually, meteors do hit the earth, quite a lot in fact and earth does pull a lot of meteors close too it, haleys comet for example and there's a lot of others, but they're mainly smallish, nothing that would cause a huge difference. but a lot of huge meteors have come very close to hitting the earth it's just chance that they haven't hit the earth.

Answer 8

Earths gravity "DO" pull more meteor than moon. But earth has a stronger gravity, and holds its atmosphere, thus most meteors burn while entering planetary atmospheric range. Only gases and minute dust and cinder and ash particles touch the surface.

Moon doesn't have a significantly dense atmosphere, thus the meteors reach moon surface intact, and makes that catastrophic look.

Answer 9

from my own limited reading/watching/listening,the earth has been hit numerous times by asteroids/meteors/comets etc in the past and even today,sometimes on a daily basis,but on a lesser degree of size etc(as size does count when counting objects coming at us from space. the moon has acted as a kind of deflector for earth,as the pockmarks on our moon indicate quite visibly so.the earth has more substance to hide some of our own craters etc,like the water/oceans.we are due in the future for another big hit,,,they say.the earth has had at least 3 major shut-downs i believe,ice ages etc.

Answer 10

It does, fortunately the moon is large enough to have a gravitational field as well, therefore most meteors that would hit earth hit the moon instead.