7 changes destroying the Moon would have on planet Earth | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | Aug, 2024

Earth, the only rocky planet with a large, massive satellite, is greatly affected by the Moon. Destroying it would cause 7 major changes.

Our Solar System began to take shape about 4.56 billion years ago, as the Sun’s core ignited nuclear fusion, and the protoplanetary disk surrounding it then began to fragment and form tiny protoplanets. After about 50 million years had elapsed, many of the worlds — including planets and moons — that we’re familiar with had already taken shape. However, a fateful collision between Earth and a large, now-subsumed protoplanet named Theia kicked up an enormous cloud of debris that surrounded our home planet in a torus-shaped structure known as a synestia. Some of that material escaped into interplanetary space; some fell back onto Earth, but the remainder coalesced and formed the largest natural satellite ever found around a rocky world: our own Moon.

For the past 4.5 billion years, the Moon has affected Earth in many ways. It’s the major cause of tides on our planet, and also helps stabilize our axial tilt over time. It’s the primary cause of why the duration of a day on Earth lengthens over time, and it’s the cause of all total solar, annular solar, and lunar eclipses that our world has ever…