The moon.
Earth’s shiny bright orbital that treats us to its burgeoning best every 29.5 days.
The moon holds a tidal influence over the world’s oceans and, more simply, reminds
us that there are other rocks out there in space, we aren’t alone.
The earth and the moon have been together for around 4.5 billion years, but what if
another space rock came hurling at our buddy?
What would happen if it were damaged beyond repair?
Hello and welcome back to Life’s Biggest Questions, the channel that does not believed
curiosity killed the cat – we believe it made it stronger and more fierce.
I am your host, Rebecca Felgate and today I am asking What If An Asteroid Destroyed
The Moon?
By now I think we all know that I love the moon.
I am a moon fan.
I have a moon app on my phone and I am scripting this video a day after a new moon…hello
moon.
Let me know if you have any strong opinions about the moon…and let me know if you think
humans will ever live on the lunar surface?
I don’t think they will because its very cold, but I suppose you can never say never!
Let me know all of your thoughts in the comments section down below and also why not leave
a few moonmojis.
Make sure you leave a thumbs up on this video and share it with a fellow moon enthusiast.
Also do stick around to the end where I will be reading some comments from a previous video.
It is thought that planet earth formed around 4.54 million years ago, and around 400,000
years later the moon formed as a result of an astronomical body the size of mars smashing
into planet earth, with the monumental debris forming our fave shiny sky buddy.
Since then, the moon and earths relationship has been rock solid.
We can tell by looking at the moon, that it has been his with asteroids before.
Unlike Earth, the moon his no atmosphere, no tectonic atmosphere and no erosion, all
of the impacts it has experienced are still visible on its surface.
It is actually thought that the moon helps attract asteroids so less hit earth… but
what if it bore the brunt of an impact simply too big to survive?
There has been concern in recent years that large asteroids passing by the earth could
pelt our beautiful moon.
In November 2011, 2005 YU55 passed by the earth inside the orbit of the moon, but luckily
the moon was a fourth of its way to the opposite side of the earth, meaning they missed one
another by 150,000 miles.
That being said, even if it had hit, it really wouldn’t have been a big deal.
The asteroid was only the size of four football fields so really, as there is no life on the
moon, the most damaged it would have caused would be a small crater on an already potmarked
surface.
The moon’s biggest impact crater is the South Pole Aitken Basin which is a whopping
1600 miles wide and 8.1 miles deep.
It is one of the biggest known impact craters in our observable solar system, which means
the moon got a real smashing once.
This was thought to have happened 3.9 billion years ago during a period called the Late
Heavy Bombardment – a time in which unusual gravitational dynamics in our infant solar
system lead to a large number of astrological impacts.
Our moon has had its fair share of drama, but it would take a near moon sized object
to actually destroy our orbital.
Back in 2011 when people were worrying about the 2005 YU55 event, Nasa’s Don Yeoman,
the director of the Near-Earth Object Program Office, spoke out to quell concerns…
He said only something not a whole lot smaller than the moon itself could do that… and
he noted that there are no asteroids large enough to do it that we know of.
The largest asteroid that we do know if is Ceres, which lives on the asteroid belt between
Mars and Jupiter.
Ceres is technically recognized as a dwarf planet and is just over a quarter the size
of the moon.
While a collision with the moon could knock it out of orbit, moving it closer or maybe
even further away from earth, unless it was travelling at some serious serious speed,
moon would survive!
BUT OKAY, enough reality, Rebecca, that isn’t why we are here.
We want know what would happen if an asteroid Astra-nuked the moon.
OKAY..okay.
The moon explosion would be quite the spectacle for those who got to see it at night.
Some people would manage to capture it on camera with long lenses and the images would
be infamous.
People had better not spend too long staring at the sky as moon chunks would be on our
weather report …and we may want to duck and cover.
Smaller chunks would likely burn up in the atmosphere before hitting earth, but the rest
would rain down on us… depending on how big they were, they could flatten buildings,
or perhaps even towns.
I imagine there would be a death toll, but how high would depend on whether on not we
knew an asteroid was going to hit and how heavily we had prepared for the catastrophe.
Long term, we would feel the effects of our moon loss.
Most of us will know that the moon is a tide controller.
While the sun does have a gravitational effect on our water bodies, the much closer moon
is the biggest influencer.
Without the moon, tides would be 40% the size there are today.
At the moment tidal flows mix ocean waters which spread nutrients to marine life.
Minimizing that process would damage ocean health, meaning a further depletion in ocean
life.
This would also mean that humans have less fish as a food source, which may continue
the current worrying trend of unsustainable cattle farming, which is damaging the atmosphere
and encouraging drought.
Nocturnal animals would also be effected, moonlight helps both prey and predators.
Our skies would also be pretty dark…
I know I for one would miss the monthly full moon.
While a lot of modern day scientist are skeptical, we have a long history of associating human
behaviour with various phases of the moon, so I do wonder how we would fare mentally
without it.
The moon acts as a bit of an anchor to earth.
While it orbits us, its gravity provides us with some stability.
Without the moon the earth may wobble on its axis which would mean inconsistent weather
as the sun would shine more erratically on various parts of our Earth.
Long term, this would effect climates as our normal process of heating and cooling is disturbed.
The earth may spin slightly faster too, making our years shorter.
If miss moon was destroyed by asteroids, we would actually be more exposed to them ourselves.
A lot of people think that the Moon protects earth from an intergalactic pelting.
How long would it be until we met the same fate as our lunar buddy?
So, the long and short of it is…. it is very unlikely that our moon could be destroyed
by an asteroid.
If it was then our oceans would change, as would our day to day weather.
We may lose fish and that would cause wider repucussions…and… things might get wobbly…
but again, no worried….it is very very unlikely as the largest asteroid we know of is far
away, and still unlikely to destroy something so large as the moon.
What did you guys think to this video?
Did you feel a lot of moon pride…are you glad the moon exists?
What a question…
I know my answer is yes…even if I wouldn’t want to live there.
COMMENTS ETC.
Comments from What if Our Sun Turned Into A strange Star?
Dr Lander Said: What if the sun has an evil twin with an evil beard??
Erik Matterson Said: youre smart? you keep talking about things light years away as if
you know anything about it, which is literally impossible except for how it looks, so not
smart, just an insistent pantomath?
You know, Erik, time and space are relative to our understanding.
With your line of thinking – i.e everyone focus on the here and now, we wouldn’t have
made much societal progression.
Don’t get me wrong, Christopher Columbus was a douche, and I am sure Lef Erikson had
some dubious qualities, but what would have happened if our historical explorers and pals
thought … you know what… sailing across the earth sounds a bit far….
Or if Nasa were like.. the Moon….pfffft…spunds like effort.
Before Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstong took a lil stroll up there, nasa already had a
lot of moon theories.
Before Spirit and Opportunity roved mars, we already had hypothesized about its surface.
It is okay to talk about theories, even if you can’t prove them yet…doing the best
with observable information is how we learn… and seeking to one day verify a truth inspires
our sense of determination and imagination.
Like I said, Erik, curiosity didn’t kill the cat, it made it wiser.
Evolution is the expansion beyond our bubble.
If we always looked inward, we would never grow.
Theorizing is a key part of human development.
Sure, we can’t travel beyond our sun…yet….
But 20,000 years ago travelling much beyond our own villages seemed a stretch.
And at this point, Erik, I would like to propose that intelligence isn’t just based on the
ability to regurgitate practically observable truths, but also a persons ability to imagine.
All of the great geniuses throughout time have been expert imaginers.
And while this channel may be ridiculous at times, thank ….frog…for our ability to
dream.
THANKS for listening to my TED talk, I have been your host Rebecca felgate, please do
leave a thumbs up on tis video and click the notification bell to be the first to hear
about future videos… until then, please do stay curious, stay imaginative and of course
never ever stop questioning.