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It's been billions of years since the Earth and the Moon has been together. So, the Moon has been with the Earth since the day one of human life. But have you ever wondered what would have happened if there was no Moon to begin with? How would it impact the Earth? Would life still exist on Earth?
When this idea comes to our mind, we cannot imagine a life without the Moon as it has been with us since the start of the human life. Since the early stage of human life, it has guided our way in nighttime, kept us on time, has religious significance in different religions and has been a major point of attraction for space agencies.
But we are here to know the unknown. So, let's think of a world without the Moon.
As per the scientists, we got our moon because of "The Big Splash." "The Big Splash" is a hypothesis which theorizes that a Mars-sized object called Theia collided with Earth almost 4.5 billion years ago and the debris resulted from this impact was tossed into the space. This debris was not able to escape the Earth's gravity and started orbiting around the Earth and gradually formed the Moon that we can see in our night sky, today.
It was a lucky accident for life to begin on the Earth because it was the Moon's orbit and gravity that slowed the Earth's spin to current rate and caused the tilt of 23.5 degrees in the Earth's axis which plays a very important role in our seasons. Because of this tilt, we are able to experience the seasons like winter, autumn, summer and spring. These two things are very important aspects for life to prosper on the Earth.
However, the life would have still evolved without the Moon because of the gravitation pull from the Sun and the Jupiter. But it would not have been the same as we know it. Firstly, the Earth's shape would have been different as the Moon causes a bulge because of its gravitational pull. Then the next effect would have been on weather as the Earth would be prone to very extreme weather in absence of the Moon. Our Calendars and Clocks would be different from that of todays as our sense of time and season would not be the same. And as the Earth would spin faster, our days would be much shorter, shorter than 10 hours.
Our night sky would be darker. At one hand it would be perfect for stargazers but on another, there would very less light on the streets in night. Early humans were very dependent on it in nighttime, and this might affect the course of history of humankind.
But the most important effect would be on our astronomy and possibly we might not have space agencies like NASA because at early stage of civilization, it was considered that the Earth is the center of the Universe. It was Galileo who first found out that the Moon's shape is spherical in year 1609 and the rest is history.
Also, it was humans' curiosity to know about the moon that resulted in the first landing on moon and that started the space race of today. If there would have been no Moon, there would have been no such curiosity and we might still be thinking that the Earth is the center of the Universe.
So, we can say that without the Moon, there would have been life on the Earth but very different from what we know today. what do you think? Can we imagine our life without the moon. Please share your thoughts in comment section.
Thank You!