if earth's moon was destroyed, what would happen to the earth?

Answer 1

Your question reminded me of an excellent book by Isaac Asimov - The Tradegy of the Moon. Here are three points from a link to the second chapter of his book entitled the Triple Triumph of the Moon:

The moon made it possible for man to evolve and so exist.
The moon made it possible for him to develop mathematics and science.
The moon made it possible for him to transcend Earth and conquer space.

These are explained at the link below. Asimov is always good reading. He also presents an original theory that when you calculate the gravitation effect the sun has on the moon and that the earth has, you can see the moon really is orbiting the sun primarily and us secondly.

But, to answer your question - we'd lose tides but end up with an interesting ring around the planet.

Answer 2

Depends on the manner in which it is destroyed. If you mean "not there anymore, but no debris", you would have to contend with no more tides, the lack of a nice thing in the ksy at night, and also increased vulnerability to asteroids (the moon can often attract asteroids to it rather than Earth). Current scientific ideas on movign the Earth (yes these exist, they involve passing a comet past it to push it away) would probably make us lose the moon as a side effect.

Any way of destroying it, though, would probably result in a lot of debris kicking around, which would be a problem if any of it came towards Earth (which may well happen, given the energy necessary to destory the moon).

Either way, not nice. But not necessarily fatal for humanity.

Answer 3

A disaster the likes of which mankind and in fact all life on Earth would not survive. The sudden release of the moons gravitational pull would cause oceanic tidal disruption and vast areas would be completely flooded. The loss of the moons mass within the Earths gravitational field would cause the planet to shift its axis and the speed of rotation would change. The climatic shifts would be devastating. The Earth might also change its orbit or become unstable in its orbit and wander off its track. This could bring enormous changes to the entire solar system.

Answer 4

Besides all the debris raining down and causing massive devastation and possibly ending all life on Earth, there would be:
- no tides
- no eclipses
- more wobble to Earth's rotation (the moon has a small stabilizing effect on the axial wobble)
- no full moon to howl at

Answer 5

I think that the Earth would have a ring like Saturn's over time, and the orbital debris would equalize over time to tug the Earth's sea in ways we don't understand. Very Cool.

Answer 6

I wouldn't expect anything to happen except for us being pelted with debris, but it could possibly affect the earth's orbit/rotation a little bit.

Answer 7

Without tides, there would be a wild ripple effect in the ocean food chain, and the ocean is where most of our oxygen is made, it's where most of our carbon dioxide goes, we'd be finished eventually. Tidal communities are a vital part of the ocean ecosystem.

Answer 8

Our Axil tilt would go wild, thus drastically change the seasons and climate, and the tides would go absoutely crazy... So nothing good...

Answer 9

A lot of people would try to take its place and "moon us".

Answer 10

There would be no eclipses.
There would be tides.
There wouldn't be a significant light source at night.