In the early time, earth collided with a smaller size planet, debris every where, earth intact with damages. The debris gave birth to our moon, at the time moon orbit was very close to earth, around 60000km if not wrong, even at that distance, earth experience 1000s x more gravity than today moon. But then according to BBC, without moon at the distance, earth will not be the same, there will be no life at all maybe. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>