Thread: What would happen if we blew up the Moon?

Originally Posted by Rich46yo

And to make it worse there probably wouldnt even be any stability to that either. Since the earth would be under gravitational influence from other orbiting bodies in the solar system. As it is the moon is close enough, and large enough, to influence a stable spin. Without it we'd be fucked!............Rich

I understand your other points but I'm not really sure what you mean by this. Earth is already under the gravitational influence of other orbiting bodies, they just don't cause the Earth to accelerate due to their gravity, except for the Sun of course. It's called Newtons Law of Universal Gravitation. So are you saying that if the moon was gone, the Earth would be at the mercy of the gravitational forces of other planets? The equation for gravitational attraction between two bodies is F=G(M1M2/r^2) and G, the gravitational constant doesn't change, it stays at 6.67e-11 newtons-meters squared per kilogram squared. Meaning for the loss of the moon to affect the gravitational pull between planets, there would have to be an increase in mass or a decrease in distances between the two objects, so I'm wondering what made you think it would take the loss of the moon for the Earth to experience gravitational influence from other bodies? Gravitational force is not necessarily the same thing as acceleration due to gravity. For another planet to break Earth from the centripetal force of its orbit around the sun, that planet would have to have incredible mass as well as a decrease in the distance, and the the presence or lack of a moon can not affect this.

We can hypothesise all day, but in the end the moon is still there so let's toast the moon and get on with our lives. No ones going to blow up the moon. There's no oil in it.

Originally Posted by maniclion

We can hypothesise all day, but in the end the moon is still there so let's toast the moon and get on with our lives. No ones going to blow up the moon. There's no oil in it.

haha, that is some funny shit. I know all this is purely hypothetical, but I like having scientific debates with people, until they say stupid shit like "Well I could kick your ass" which Rich hasn't, so its all good.

gocock I must admit, with all my un-educated dumb-ass street cop humility, that I don't know what the fuck your talking about!

I understand Universal gravitation. I also understand that the earth is under gravitational influence, as is all matter in the Universe. What Im "not" saying is that earths orbit around the sun would be affected. I'm saying if the moon all of a sudden disappeared it would create instability in earths rotation, which would cause havoc with climatic stability, which would cause planet wide devastation. Maybe even mass extinction.

In time the rotation might stabilize, who knows? I don't know! But in the meantime we'd be fucked for sure. And any hunter, as I am, knows that life on earth beats to the moon. Thats why we fisherman study moon patterns. The two days before, and after, a full moon are your best times to catch a trophy fish. Maybe some animals could adopt to no moon. I bet, with life as fragile as it is, most wouldn't.

The earth is what? Over 4 billion years old right? And the moon is what, about 3 billion? Imagine the impact such a large body would have in stabilizing the rotation of a planet over that time?

Originally Posted by Rich46yo

gocock I must admit, with all my un-educated dumb-ass street cop humility, that I don't know what the fuck your talking about!

I understand Universal gravitation. I also understand that the earth is under gravitational influence, as is all matter in the Universe. What Im "not" saying is that earths orbit around the sun would be affected. I'm saying if the moon all of a sudden disappeared it would create instability in earths rotation, which would cause havoc with climatic stability, which would cause planet wide devastation. Maybe even mass extinction.

In time the rotation might stabilize, who knows? I don't know! But in the meantime we'd be fucked for sure. And any hunter, as I am, knows that life on earth beats to the moon. Thats why we fisherman study moon patterns. The two days before, and after, a full moon are your best times to catch a trophy fish. Maybe some animals could adopt to no moon. I bet, with life as fragile as it is, most wouldn't.

The earth is what? Over 4 billion years old right? And the moon is what, about 3 billion? Imagine the impact such a large body would have in stabilizing the rotation of a planet over that time?

haha, I know what you mean. I don't know if you have or not, but if you ever have or do take an astrophysics course, you will realize how indepth and trippy physics actually is. To understand Newtons law of universal gravitation, you have to also be able to understand Einsteins theory of general relativity, because they both sort of play off of each other. Gravity is emitted as a wave, just like an electrostatic field, so Einstein theorized that gravitational waves move at the speed of light, c, of course force depends on mass and distance. But space has no atmosphere, so gravity works much like light. Light is a constant, its speed can't be changed, and technically so is gravity according to the Gravitational constant, the only thing that changes is the distance between two points and their masses. If Newton and Einstein were correct, and they were, this means that basically everything pulls on everything else, from tiny atoms, to planets, to galaxies, to quasars and beyond, and the two factors that govern the effects of gravity are mass and distance. Everyone has heard that "there is no gravity in space" so why do the planets move? Well there is gravity, but a planet has an incredible amount of mass so the reason humans in space don't start orbiting the sun is because their mass is negligible when compared to a planet. In space, size does not matter, it is mass that matters. Jupiter is much bigger than earth but it's mass is smaller which is why it's farther from the sun than Earth, but Jupiter does have gravity, and it is pulling on all the other planets, and the reason it doesn't pull other planets out of orbit is because the gravitational force of the sun is greater than all the other planets due to its immense mass.To break the force of gravity, an object has to exceed the escape velocity of whatever gravitational force is restricting it. It would be easier to picture these situations if mass was positively correlated to size but it's not. And theory states that the gravitational force of a black hole is inescapable, even for light, because they supposedly have infinite mass and zero volume, but I don't understand that shit.

Originally Posted by Rich46yo

I will add that there are many,many "to many" species already on the verge of extinction, due to this savage naked ape that doesn't give a shit about them. Any climatic change in their habitat would speed their extinction. Furthermore, and this wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact I'd probably die too, humans would die in vast quantities due to the interruption of food supply.

And not just crop land. Basically anyplace we get food from, that underwent climate change, would lead to an interruption of our food supply's. If just the American breadbasket became un-farmable the world would be fucked! Next you would have wars over food, people eating each other, and eventually you'd end up with Charlton Heston in "Planet of the Rats". I am not talking so much about a Hollywood disaster movie as I am about climatic change that destroyed the food chain. And it would do so in a matter of a lifetime, not billions of years................Rich

99% of all species that have lived on this earth are now extinct. To blame that on the disgusting humans is just ignorant.


.......................uncle Tom

Originally Posted by ForemanRules

99% of all species that have lived on this earth are now extinct. To blame that on the disgusting humans is just ignorant.


.......................uncle Tom

Social Darwinism...

I know all that. I taught myself it like I did many things. You do however lose me with that k=Gh6x2-e+H2O=La1. Tho I guess to really understand this stuff you have to know math.

Both theories, however, are not written in stone and are just that "theory's". At least until someone comes up with something better. For instance Newton considered time a constant where-as Einstein proved time is not a constant. Not to diminish Newton, who also developed the math to measure gravitation, but correct me If I'm wrong, didnt Newton believe space was separate from time? Where-as Einstein proved they weren't separate and that gravity is actually a warping of space time?

There's a headknocker for you. One might think to travel from one star to another you would just go in a straight line. But the mass of a star is so high that it bends space time and it will take you longer/shorter to reach it then you thought. Not only that but if the mass was large enough, like a black hole, time itself would actually slow down to almost zero.

However even Einstein wasn't failure proof as his theory on Universe expansion showed. An interesting question about black holes is are they necessary for a galaxy to form? I know we have found them in the center of many galaxy's but not all right? And isnt this absence of enough mass the arguemnt for dark matter?

Anyway..........interesting shit! You would think sinces its all math they would be able to say for sure what would happen to the earths rotation if the moon just disappeared.

Originally Posted by gococksDJS

Jupiter is much bigger than earth but it's mass is smaller

Um....no!

Jupiter is more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined (the mass of Jupiter is 318 times that of Earth).

http://www.nineplanets.org/jupiter.html

Oh good. Foreman is here. He'll certainly add something to this discussion.

Has anyone looked down at the the Similar Threads?

WTF!

Originally Posted by Pepper

Oh good. Foreman is here. He'll certainly add something to this discussion.

Originally Posted by Pepper

Um....no!


http://www.nineplanets.org/jupiter.html

Thank you for correcting me Pepper, I should have said more dense, not more massive, because density is mass per unit volume.

Yeah, in thinking about it later, I figured that is what you meant.

Notice I avoided the easy USC education joke.

Originally Posted by Rich46yo

I know all that. I taught myself it like I did many things. You do however lose me with that k=Gh6x2-e+H2O=La1. Tho I guess to really understand this stuff you have to know math.

Both theories, however, are not written in stone and are just that "theory's". At least until someone comes up with something better. For instance Newton considered time a constant where-as Einstein proved time is not a constant. Not to diminish Newton, who also developed the math to measure gravitation, but correct me If I'm wrong, didnt Newton believe space was separate from time? Where-as Einstein proved they weren't separate and that gravity is actually a warping of space time?

There's a headknocker for you. One might think to travel from one star to another you would just go in a straight line. But the mass of a star is so high that it bends space time and it will take you longer/shorter to reach it then you thought. Not only that but if the mass was large enough, like a black hole, time itself would actually slow down to almost zero.

However even Einstein wasn't failure proof as his theory on Universe expansion showed. An interesting question about black holes is are they necessary for a galaxy to form? I know we have found them in the center of many galaxy's but not all right? And isnt this absence of enough mass the arguemnt for dark matter?

Anyway..........interesting shit! You would think sinces its all math they would be able to say for sure what would happen to the earths rotation if the moon just disappeared.

Yes, the theory is that there are four dimensions, three dimensions of space and one dimension of time, which also explains why time can not be a constant. The universe is always expanding, so if you shot a beam of light from Earth to another galaxy, this would show you how time isn't a constant.
Lets say that the distance from Earth to the other galaxy is exactly 5 billion light years, but the expanding of the universe would mean that the two points were growing apart as that beam of light was traveling through space, so the distance of 5 billion light years at this moment in time will be smaller than that same distance 5 billion light years from now, when the beam of light hits the other galaxy, meaning time is not a constant, but the difficult part comes from this; the term expansion means a passage of time, because it takes time for something to expand, so if time expands then it expands by a certain unit of time, so does time stretch with time? Or does time stretch with space? BUT expansion also requires space to expand into so does the expansion of space depend on space? How can the expansion of space be based on a unit of space? If space expands with time then couldn't you say the expansion of space depends on space and time on time but at what point of origin in time, and since space expands, at what point of space? Then that would mean that spacetime originated from one single point at time zero, meaning that existence was created from nothing, no matter, no time, no energy, nothing, but energy can not be created or destroyed, it only changes form. Which means if you claim that there is an origin of time and space, something would have had to create it, a 5th dimension possibly? Or God? Who the hell knows, but figure it out, and i'm pretty sure you will win the Nobel Prize.

ARNOLD WANTS TO DESTROY THE MOON!

Originally Posted by IainDaniel

probably alot of chaos with the weather. The moon also has an impact on the tides.

yea, we would be fucked.

They went over this on a discovery chanel special. they were showing that the moon moves further from earth's orbit every year. In some thousands of years, it will be totally out of earth's orbit and life will be ruined.

We're fucked. Might as well spend the rest of the days we have on the sofa eating chocolate while depressed.

Originally Posted by danzik17

We're fucked. Might as well spend the rest of the days we have on the sofa eating chocolate while depressed.

No : ) Let's get high and watch the light show!!

This scientist thinks the moon was essential for new life:
No Moon, no life on Earth, suggests theory - 18 March 2004 - New Scientist

There is also a community of scientists that believe the moon creates/accelerates the occurrence of earthquakes.

"The Moon keeps the angle between the rotation axis of the Earth and the plane of the orbit of the Earth within a fairly narrow range, so that the strength of the seasons cannot differ too much from its current value. If the Moon disappeared, then the inclination of the rotation axis of the Earth would vary much more over periods of thousands of years and could get much further away from the upright position, with corresponding greater differences between summer and winter, and hence with great influence on the climate, such as Mars has experienced"
-http://www.astro.uu.nl/~strous/AA/en/antwoorden/maan.html#v389

So in short the seasons would go haywire with the moon and our axis would be very erradic.

gococks....I don't think your science book is going to be a good one.
Rich is right...and I saw the Nova special with the guy who had the 97 Ph.Ds

yeah....pretty much what pepper posted

YouTube Video

If the moon exploded, there would be no more need for the government to provide those free cheese programs.