A Glimpse Into What Would Happen If One Day The Moon Just Disappears!
As kids, each one of us can claim to have laid under the night sky and gazed at stars, constellations, and of course, the moon. Those were the simpler times when we wondered how these things stand still in the sky; how the moon looks so pretty even with those bold dark patches. Moon-gazing was counted among one of the most entertaining activities, as opposed to the smartphone games of the current generation! Oh well…
Neven Krcmarek/Unsplash | If the moon disappeared one day, it would cause a severe impact on life on our planet
Coming back to the moon, when staring at it on a clear sky night, did it ever strike your consciousness that what would happen if one day it just disappeared into oblivion? Sounds weird, right? A world where there’s no beautiful white ball up in the sky to illuminate the dark night. How mundane would that be!
Actually, mundane doesn’t begin to describe what would happen.
The impact of the moon on the Earth’s tides
Did you know that the moon is on a constant stroll? Every year, it shifts about 1.5 inches further away from the Earth, and during this process, our planet’s rotation speed slows down a tini-tiny bit. Now even though it may seem trivial, each such movement has ripple effects on the Earth. For starters, it has an enormous impact on the Earth’s tides.
Mark Tegethoff/Unsplash | Without the moon, high and low tides would flinch by a significant margin, disrupting marine life
If the moon goes missing, high and low tides would flinch by a guesstimate of 75%. Needless to say, this would insanely jeopardize the existence of many types of mussels, sea snails, and crabs that live in the tidal zones. That would distort the diets of the bigger animals who depend on these small creatures for food, and so on the entire coastal ecosystem will get impacted. This would lead to a mass population decline in the sea, and maybe on land as well.
The impact of the moon on the Earth’s weather
Now, you may think that the moon’s existence doesn’t hold as much of a sway on human life, without it, something most people care about would change drastically – the weather conditions. Tides and tidal currents allow cold arctic water to mix with the warm water of the tropics. This singular act in itself plays a major role in maintaining climatic temperatures globally. In the absence of the moon, carrying out weather forecasts would be realistically impossible. The average differentiation between the coolest and hottest areas on Earth would grow and lead to life-threatening situations.
Daiwei Lu/Unsplash | In the absence of the moon, carrying out weather forecasts would be realistically impossible since global temperatures would fluctuate a lot
That thing better stay up there!
The moon’s existence isn’t just crucial for life on Earth; it’s critical to evolution on the planet. According to experts, the moon isn’t just a powerful source of bright light in the night sky. Its existence is extremely pivotal to the balancing act that makes life on Earth possible.