What If the Moon Disappeared Right Now?

[Music] well finally here's a question I've never asked and I'll bet you haven't either what if the moon exploded well for one thing the man in the moon would be rather upset you know when we look up at the night sky no matter what phase it might be in on any particular night we're always greeted by the moon so we often take it for granted and never even give a thought to how our life would be without our rocky little satellite however there was a time when the earth had no moon until what scientists say was a mars-sized planet like object called Theia collided with our planet when earth was still just a baby a very big baby now this happened about four billion years ago you'd think that the approaching monster probably brought nothing but disaster but it turned out that even something that terrifying could lead to something good as a result of the massive collision a huge chunk of the earth broke away and created the moon after that our planet was never alone again but have you ever wondered what would happen if the moon suddenly disappeared among all the worst case apocalyptic scenarios out there this is one of the most blood chilling running a close second is the next spider-man movie reboot now before we get into all the doomsday stuff it's important to understand just how important the moon is for our planet most scientists are sure that it was precisely the moon that provided all the necessary conditions for the appearance of life on earth surprisingly all life on our green planet started in the oceans it was only much later when plants and living creatures had evolved enough to begin living on land what does that have to do with the moon you ask well one of the most important things about the moon is the influence its gravitational pull has on the earth this is what makes the Seas and the oceans rise and fall giving birth to the tides they occur twice a day with the water level rising and then receding again and every time the ocean retreats different organisms and plants get stranded in puddles or left behind clinging to rocks hundreds of millions of years ago these prisoners were left with a choice either adapt to life on the surface or perish so if it weren't for the moon there wouldn't have been tides to force aquatic life forms to set up shop on land who knows maybe if this didn't happen today humans would have fins gills and mermaid tails and then you'd see real action on keeping the oceans clean huh the gravitational forces of the Sun also play their role in the creation of the tides but their influence is much weaker after all compared to the moon the Sun is 400 times farther from the earth and surprisingly the Sun isn't the only factor that influences our climate either the moon also has a finger in that too the moon has a finger but we'll get into that a bit later so now that you know how incredibly important the moon is for the earth let's see what would happen if the moon should just disappear one day would we notice and would it matter hey hey Bob have you seen the moon it was just here and now it's gone I know Jim I haven't I've been looking at my smartphone the whole time well let's see not only would we notice but we would also feel the grave consequences immediately right now the moon's gravitational force pulls the Earth's water masses towards itself creating a huge tidal bulge about 1.5 feet high out in the middle of the ocean the Sun pulls its own tidal bulge towards itself keeping everything in balance so if we take the moon out of the equation that balance is broken and 72 thousand cubic miles of water come crashing down to sea level this creates a super massive tidal wave the likes of which humankind has never seen before sure hey dude Surf's Up it's going to be gnarly California Australia Southeast Asia large parts of Africa Chile India and parts of Western Europe disappear in the rushing mass of water this doesn't bring along destruction of cities and houses it also means death hi dude you're harshing my vibe 3/4 of the planet is affected and fatalities reach 140 million worldwide that's half the population of the United States but that's not all the number of casualties keeps going up as the tidal catastrophe destroys infrastructure and triggers earthquakes volcanic eruptions and hurricanes the total number of lives lost easily exceeds 1 billion on the plus side subscriptions to the weather channel go way up earth and civilization never recover after this cataclysmic disaster once the large waves calm down and the water gets equally distributed around the planet scavenger wars ensue due to the new landscape on earth people can't grow crops or develop agriculture so resource has become extremely limited people start fighting for food and the scarce remnants of technology that are still left on the planet civil wars are likely to break out and they could be more brutal than anything we've ever seen before even the Black Friday sale at Walmart without the moon to counterbalance it the Earth's axial tilt becomes extremely unstable and that's yet another serious problem on top of the existing ones this means that our planet's core will constantly shift and shake not unlike what currently happens on Mars without the moon the earth's tilt would sometimes reach 45 degrees meaning that we'd be in a world spinning on its side with Mars this extreme tilt has been known to cause periodic ice ages and besides setting off earthquakes and volcanic eruptions you can imagine what an unstable position like this entails the equator would no longer be the hottest part on the planet and the poles wouldn't be as cold as they were before in fact in a few years the ice caps start to melt and sea levels gradually rise the climate never goes back to the one we're used to and the seasons become absolutely unpredictable week after week people see nothing but rain yet this is followed by a dry season lasting for months on end then everything suddenly gets buried in snow that doesn't melt for weeks or perhaps months the transition between our four distinct seasons exists no more a lot of places on the planet become hostile and unwelcoming towards people too harsh and unpredictable to develop agriculture and settle down with every passing year larger and larger areas on earth become desert like hi where do we go for vacation Buffalo [Music] after the period of warming and melting the ice at the polls global cooling advances and this is because the gravity of our satellite slows down the rotation of our planet so without the moon the earth would spin faster and faster besides much shorter days this means that temperatures would drop since the Sun wouldn't have enough time to heat the surface of our planet besides that if our earth were spinning out of control we'd also see tons of super powerful and destructive hurricanes smashing into coastal regions with cruelty and don't forget that it's not just humans that have to deal with all these catastrophic changes on a moonless earth without the moon low and high tides decreased by 75% which disrupts entire ecosystems that are dependent on the tides that's right a lot of marine life uses lunar cues to understand when it's time to reproduce so without the moon these natural cycles get all messed up and this dramatically affects the whole food chain algae for example normally come to the surface at night directed by the moonlight this then beckons creatures that feed on algae like mussels crabs and sea snails and then creatures that feed on those algae eaters follow and this activity goes all the way up the food chain if this process gets disrupted we will get mass extinctions yet new unimaginable creatures would appear as old ones die out and what they'd look like nobody can possibly fathom also just a pile on the misery our earth would lose its body guard against countless asteroids and meteors after our satellite stops taking the impact of these astronomical objects for us the chances of them hitting our planet would skyrocket that being said the biggest question remains how the moon could suddenly vanish the only imaginable way is that our satellite blows up this could either be done by hostile aliens hoping to bring our demise hmm that gets my vote or people themselves decide to conduct some experiment gone wrong by the way no official law prohibits causing harm to the moon so it's possible and people might be that stupid so whatever the case that's the only theory that makes sense so after the moon blows up pieces of it start bombarding the earth they aren't as dangerous as meteors because they're not falling towards the earth as fast but five miles per second is still worth worrying about the smallest pieces burn up in the atmosphere but the bigger ones cause further destruction and death on the planet hey dude you totally need to chill so what seems like not such a big deal at first will have catastrophic consequences to life on our dear planet and if it loses its one and only yet so important satellite the earth would be an entirely different place to live and the only Moon's left would be the ones that we share with each other I didn't say that so which consequence of a moonless earth scares you the most massive tidal waves climate shift Wars extinction asteroids crashing into the planet or shudder no moon light for those romantic evening walks tell us in the comments below share this video with all your friends that are fascinated by doomsday scenarios and don't forget to hit the like button join us on the bright side of life

Channel: BRIGHT SIDE

Views: 1,297,221

Rating: 4.6921515 out of 5

Keywords: the future of Earth, what if the moon exploded, gravitational force, fun science, what will happen to the world, apocalypse, cataclysms, disaster, shocking facts, facts about future, interesting facts, things you’ve never seen, unusual things, facts about planet, facts about earth, facts about universe, future of the Moon

Id: ekDV2uHhuCI

Length: 11min 10sec (670 seconds)

Published: Sun May 06 2018