JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

What if Earth had no moon? ✖️🌕
(1) https://t.co/pCoe7Wi7Ti

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

Many of us enjoy looking up at the Moon at night, but we don't really stop to think about the true importance of our bright friend in the sky. We know that most of the other planets in our Solar System have more than one moon, so they would be fine if a few went missing.
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JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

Most of their moons are also much smaller than ours, which means they probably don't have as much of a significant impact on the planet as our moon does.
Now, we all know about the Moon and its direct relationship to the tides, as well as illuminating our night sky, but...
(3) https://t.co/MikL06ETAG

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

what if we had no moon? How would our lives change?
How would Earth as a whole change?
Let's start with probably the biggest and most noticeable change of them all: nights.
Without a moon, our nights would be UNBELIEVABLY dark, since it provides us light once the Sun sets.
(4) https://t.co/ZTfbKt5bQZ

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

Even though we may be asleep for most of the night, there are nocturnal predators which use the Moon for hunting purposes. Their ways of hunting prey would probably completely change (or they would probably evolve to have better vision).
(5) https://t.co/3BylbjxKht

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

https://t.co/NpKklzEtFG puts into perspective just how dark it would be at night without a moon: "Scientists suggest that without human-made lighting, we would not be able to see our hands in front of our face without the Moon during nighttime."
That's absolutely terrifying.
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JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

I mean, second to the Moon, the next brightest object in the night sky is Venus, which obviously would not be bright enough to illuminate the night sky due to its distance from us.
(7) https://t.co/tAuz0twjh8

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

That's only the nights though. Our days would be affected as well with no moon. A simple lesson in gravity will tell you that both the Earth and Moon exert a gravitational pull on one another. In fact, the Moon is actually the object that slows down Earth's rotation due...
(8) https://t.co/dIPhSUr0Wl

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

to the pull it's exerting on our planet.
Most of us are familiar with the fact that the Moon is responsible for the tides. Its pull causes the oceans to rise and fall. Due to the moving water, there is very slight friction from the oceans on the surface of the Earth.
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JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

Since we're talking about what it would be like to not have a moon, however, it's assumed that the water on the surface of the Earth would spread uniformly across the planet and the rotation would speed up. This leads me into the topic of time. We have months because of...
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JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

the phases of the Moon, which gives us around 30-31 days each month (except February of course, which is the oddball month and my birth month coincidentally, but that doesn't matter).
If the Earth is rotating faster, then it's safe to assume that our days themselves...
(11) https://t.co/7wKXIkTDMw

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

would be shorter. There's a saying that we "only have 24 hours in a day," but without the Moon, we would probably be experiencing days that are between 6-12 hours, so good luck getting much work done then. Also, getting a decent amount of sleep would be difficult as...
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JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

well, since adults need around 8 hours. This means that we would have to completely change our calendar to account for this change, so instead of the usual 365 days that we have in a year, we would most likely have over 1,000 (I don't even want to imagine that).
(13) https://t.co/wJvYnNyRnZ

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

Now let's talk briefly about the biggest thing that the Moon affects on Earth: the tides. The Moon affects the tides by exerting a gravitational pull on them. This causes the water to bulge toward where the Moon is-AKA high tide. On the side of the Earth where the water...
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JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

does not bulge toward the Moon, it moves away-AKA low tide. These tides are also affected by the motion of the Earth while it's rotating.
Here's a helpful graphic that I've used in a previous thread about if Earth had more than one moon:
(15) https://t.co/qVMPnER0Ei

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

Without the Moon and the gravitational pull that it provides, the tides would shrink. "Scientists suggest that without the Moon, tides would be 1/3 of the size they are now" (https://t.co/38aqqDYcSe). The Sun also influences tides, but its pull is much weaker, since it's...
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JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

further away from the earth than the Moon. This means that coastal areas would be affected and the economy of fishing and transporting things by boat would also be heavily impacted.
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JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

The Moon's pull is known to slow down the Earth's rotation, but if there wasn't a moon, then the Earth's rotation would be faster, which would influence our weather patterns and wind speeds (the wind speeds would increase without the Moon).
(18) https://t.co/nNvv8rlGS7

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

If the change in weather doesn't interest you, then the dramatic change in seasons might. The Moon impacts the angle of Earth's tilt. Again, this is due to its gravitational pull. This is actually a good thing, because the Moon essentially keeps the Earth form wobbling.
(19) https://t.co/PeJ2cHftEd

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

It stabilizes where the Earth is tilted. Earth is at a 23.5 degree tilt, which does mean that it leans slightly more on one side than the other. This tilt is responsible for our seasons. If we didn't have a moon, the tilt would change, which would drastically affect the...
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JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

seasons and weather. There are two scenarios: we would either have a very extreme tilt with more extreme weather, or we would have virtually no tilt at all and basically no seasons.
(21) https://t.co/1VSEoy9IF8

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

Final thoughts: As you could probably tell after reading all of this, the Moon is SUPER important for us, not only because of all of the vital components that it controls on Earth, but because it's the only other body that humans have been able to stand on apart from Earth!
(22) https://t.co/0yHQhIlwbF

JAS-per the Friendly Ghost 👻👻 @astro_jaz · Aug 30

I know that certain billionaires are trying to send people to Mars right now, but we don't know how far in the future that will be.
We may not even have gone into space at all if there wasn't a moon, and that's scary and sad to think about.
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