A giant asteroid is heading our way.
But no, it won't hit the Earth.
This asteroid is about
to slam into the Moon
and crack it right in half.
Before getting into our scenario,
let me tell you about the time long ago
when the Moon almost exploded.
It was a beautiful summer night in England
in the year 1178.
And one hour after sunset,
people witnessed
a spectacular phenomenon.
A giant flame appeared around the upper part of that evening’s crescent Moon.
And right before their eyes,
the Moon appeared to split in two before turning black.
At least this is how the event
was recorded by the local chronicler.
As you could probably guess,
the Moon didn’t actually split in half that night.
It’s possible that what these people saw
was a large asteroid slamming into it.
But an event like this
would've sent massive amounts of lunar material toward Earth.
More likely, what they witnessed was
a meteorite entering the atmosphere
and crossing their line of sight
directly in front of the Moon.
This would have given the illusion of it
splitting into two in a fiery fashion.
But who needs illusions
or questionable historical accounts
when we could imagine what would really happen.
Just get ready to avoid falling Moon rocks.
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The Moon is bombarded by hundreds of asteroids and meteorites every year.
And without an atmosphere
like we enjoy back on Earth,
these objects don’t burn up before impact.
So even a meteorite as small as 25 cm (10 in) across
could have a big impact on the Moon.
In 2006, one approximately this size slammed into it.
From Earth, the impact looked like a flash
that lasted only four-tenths of a second.
But it created a crater about 14 m (46 ft) long and 3 m (10 ft) deep.
Taking things up a notch,
a 40 cm (16 in) meteoroid slammed into the Moon
at a speed of 90,100 km/h (56,000 mph).
This was such an intense collision
that it caused a flash as bright as some stars in the night sky.
That means when this happened in 2013,
you could look up and see the events unfolding without a telescope.
For one whole second, at least.
The likeliest contender within our Solar System
of doing some serious damage to the Moon would be Ceres.
It's the largest object found in the belt between Jupiter and Mars.
While it is technically classified as a dwarf planet,
it’s still only about
a quarter as large as the Moon.
But even that wouldn't be enough to break the Moon in two,
or at least to knock it out of its orbit.
For that, you'd need an asteroid
almost the same size as the Moon itself.
And if this happened, you'd know it right away.
About 1.3 seconds after impact,
you’d see the Moon being torn apart.
Massive amounts of debris
would be hurtling toward Earth.
Some of this debris could be even larger than the asteroid
that caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.
But before you start picturing the life-on-Earth-wiped-out scenario,
things might not be as bad as you think.
Normally, Earth-bound asteroids
travel at speeds faster than 100 km/s (62 mi/s).
But it would be different for the chunks of the broken Moon
and the Moon-destroying asteroid.
These would have much lower speeds.
And with that,
much less energetic impacts.
If you were lucky,
the impact from even the most
colossal pieces of lunar debris
would release only 1% of the energy of a similar-sized asteroid.
Adding to your luck,
you’d get to witness a meteor shower of truly epic proportions
as smaller bits of debris would burn up in the atmosphere.
And this epic collision wouldn't result
in two split halves of the Moon
now orbiting around Earth.
Sadly, you'd have to kiss the Moon goodbye.
It would be shattered into a million pieces.
But if it were to somehow break, more or less, in two,
there would be a chance you wouldn't even know.
At least not right away.
That's because the asteroid could have split the Moon
right between the side that always faces Earth and its dark side.
You could still see the front of the Moon
beaming down on you.
Eventually, the two halves could escape each other's gravity,
revealing two hemispheres in the night sky.
And they'd stay like that for a long time.
At least until the effects of gravity
pulling each half from all sides
shape them into similar spheres.
But this would take millions, if not billions, of years.
If the Moon is blown to bits,
our night sky would be permanently
transformed into a dazzling sea of stars.
Venus would become the new, brightest object
despite the fact that it’s 14,000 times
less bright than the Moon once was.
Some of the more drastic consequences of the Moon being destroyed
would start to make your life difficult.
The Moon is responsible for the Earth’s 23.4-degree tilt on its axis.
Without it, this tilt could become as much as 45 degrees.
That would make our planet spin nearly on its side.
And this would mean the Sun
would no longer shine directly over the equator.
Instead, it would beam down closer to the North and South Poles.
This would trigger some extreme weather.
And could lead to ice ages that occur on different parts of the planet
as often as every few thousand years.
And the tides would never be the same again.
Earth's powerful tides are caused by
the Moon's gravitational pull on our oceans.
The Sun's gravitational pull
on our sea levels
is only about half of what the Moon can pull of.
No longer having the Moon in our orbit
would lower sea levels
and have a huge effect on ecosystems in intertidal zones.
Tidal wetlands' species would now have even more
fierce competition for food and shelter.
This could really endanger a lot of marine life, like sea turtles.
The rising and falling of tides
is an extremely important factor
in giving their offspring the best chance of survival.
Still, this would all be a lot better than if Earth took a direct hit
from an asteroid nearly the size of the Moon.
But that’s a story
for another WHAT IF.