What would Earth be like w/o a big moon?

[ehkzu]

It would have the Moon's mass added, the Orpheus mass subtracted (assuming an impact formed the Moon). Maybe a wash? But lots more water. So a few peaks & mountain ranges, the rest ocean. And up to 90 degrees of polar wobble over time. Now suppose this Moon-less Earth were currently at the same tilt as our own Earth--about 23 degrees as I recall. <br /><br />I'm guessing life would have evolved. Those benthic vent biota point to life being pretty determined, after all. So we get an atmosphere with oxygen, eventually? The violent climate shifts would be buffered to some extent by the vast ocean, which would also also living creatures to migrate as reguired by that axial wobble. And you could have land animals, though limited by the much smaller available land masses and the lack of shallow continental shelves I'm also guessing. And right now on Moonless Earth there'd be a roughly similar climate, though very Albatross-friendly with big, steady winds in the 40s--north and south. And wouldn't such a place have highly robust life forms, though perhaps nothing very advanced, especially on land?<br /><br />Thoughts?

 

[kmarinas86]

What if the living Earth orbited Neptune sized planet, now that would be COOL.

 

[newtonian]

ehkzu - The tilt would be unstable.<br /><br />I do not believe in chemical evolution. <br /><br />Obviously you do.<br /><br />Why?

 

[ehkzu]

On those mainly-water-surfaced planets w/o life, I wonder if it would be possible to establish life there that would start producing free oxygen. Some kind of bacteria? Planted by some sort of Johnny Bacteriaseed?<br /><br />For life to start on a water planet without a big moon...what about the anaerobic bacteria around deep sea vents? Could something build up from that instead of down from shallow seas? <br /><br />That way or another, maybe life would form but take a whole lot longer, especially with the planet wobbling about, such that by 4 1/2 B years it would be mainly bacteria, oxygen atmosphere, but no higher life? <br />

 

[ehkzu]

I believe (so to speak) that the word "believe" in a scientific context and the word "believe" in a spiritual context are homophones no more related than the word "love" in the context of "I love hot dogs" is to the similar-sounding word in the context of romance, patriotism, more. <br /><br />The English language misleads us this way--insufficient granularity, too much lumping-togethering. <br /><br />So when I put my scientific hat on and say I believe something, I mean this in the contextual, conditional sense scientists use for everything, with degrees of certainty radiating out from experimentally proven and replicable phenomena, out to our farthest imaginings about, say, string theory and the concept of the Big Bang meaning universe-membranes kissing and punching the big reset button on both universes involved. <br /><br />OTOH "believe" in a spiritual context is to me an attempt to wrap language around the largest feelings human consciousness is capable of. What interests me in this area is that people with and without religious allegances seem, as far as I can tell, to feel the exact same feelings I'm talking about here--but they put different cognitive constructions on those feelings. I present this neither as a proof nor disproof of any religious allegience.<br /><br />Nor am I trying to just parse words or play intellectual games here. I love the English language but with this sort of thing I know why poetry is necessary. English evolved (again, so to speak) as a language of business, to let Britain's Old French-speaking Norman rulers carry out transactions with/give orders to/receive reports from their Old German-speaking subjects. It's not a real language but a sort of pidgin. Great for business/science/technology. Limited in things of the heart/spirit, though its fantastic flexibility lets us use it that way, as long as we do so with respect for its humble origins. <br /><br />"The finger is not the Moon."

 

[one_billy]

What if the living Earth orbited Neptune sized planet, now that would be COOL. <br /><br />Yes it would.But you'd better stick with your text books if you expect to get through to these gear boxes.Don't expect any imagination or creativity here <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[alpha_taur1]

" English evolved (again, so to speak) as a language of business, to let Britain's Old French-speaking Norman rulers carry out transactions with/give orders to/receive reports from their Old German-speaking subjects. It's not a real language but a sort of pidgin."<br /><br />OT, but the Danes probably had a greater effect in the pidginisation of English than the Normans post 1066. <br /><br /> The Normans had little effect on grammar, but introduced a lot more vocabulary to the English language. Norman French became rustic and embarassing when Parisian French took over in Normandy. That's why English speakers are so lousy at learning Foreign languages. It's a hangover of Norman cultural cringe.

 

[ehkzu]

I thought the Danelaw in NE of Engelond contributed mainly to the unintelligibility of Northumbrian farmers today. Not sure they had much effect on the evolution of Middle English in and around London. Know any vocab/grammar studies of Danish contribution? My wife's half Danish blooded. She might find that amusing.<br /><br />Trivia sidenote: the heroine of High Fidelity is a Danish actress who came to America to make that movie & promptly returned afterwards. You can also see her in the Danish movie Mifune. Her accent in English is nearly undetectable. <br />I have noticed that Danish sounds like German spoken with an English accent. I've also heard that Frisian sounds like English, but I've never been in Friesland so can't confirm that.

 

[nacnud]

I had a friend that went from the London area to university in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. For the first three months they pretended to be French because they couldn’t understand the locals but they could when they replied in French!<br /><br />I've not had first hand experience of this (many because I cant speak Scandinavian) but some northern dialects are supposedly very similar to Scandinavian.<br />

 

[alpha_taur1]

"Not sure they had much effect on the evolution of Middle English in and around London."<br /><br />The Danelaw and the effect of Old Norse on AngloSaxon was considerably more influential than the Normans later on. Certainly the Normans added a considerable vocabulary, so that we have direct Latin borrowings and Latin borrowings through Norman French - examples are channel and Canal. <br /><br />Actually Anglosaxon was related to Old Norse, and people could communicate quite well if they missed out much of the grammar. Examples are the verb to be, which became 'are' (cf AS sindon). The personal pronouns adopted the ON thy, them and their. The most dramatic change resulted in the dropping of genders. So English is one of the few Germanic languages that don't have M,F and neuter as a result. It was during this stage of contact between the Danelaw and the Anglo Saxons that much of the grammar became pidginised. You can imagine an Old Norse person trading a horse (hrosset mit) and the Anglosaxon trader replying mine hors ?<br />Some of the words that came into being during that time included both, same, get, give, skirt, sky etc.<br /><br /> I'll agree that the Old Norse vocabulary endured far greater in the North of England. By the time the Normans came along, English grammar was considerably simpler.<br />

 

[alpha_taur1]

Getting back to the topc, I think in terms of the influence of lunar tides on tectonics, we would probably notice a considerable difference. The moon probably assisted in the differentiation process which resulted in a iron core in the Earth, and a subsequent geomagnetic field.<br /><br />I think in terms of impacts, the effects were very subtle. I asked a similar question in another thread.

 

[ehkzu]

I'm guessing pidgins in general have a simplifying effect on grammar, at the price of introducing many exceptions to rules due to heterogeneous parentage of the pidgin. <br /><br />Some guess that pidgins point to genetic fundamentals of language formation--one of those areas both as interesting and as iffy as this big moon-planet question.

 

[ehkzu]

Back on topic indeed, I seem to have gotten different inputs about water formation/amount. I'd thought it took the Moon formation process to reduce Earth's water amt. enough to have lots of dry land. But I think someone else said kind of the opposite. What's most plausible?

 

[alpha_taur1]

I'm not so sure how much of the current atmosphere is cometary impact derived. There would have also been considerable volcanic offgassing following the collision.<br /><br />Yeah those Scandinavians also loaned a few words concerning seafaring to the Celts. So a lot of fish and seabird names in the Gaelic languages are pure Norse- Example Scottish Gaelic Scarbh = cormorant= norse skarva. <br /><br />On your orginal word 'believe', I remember having difficulty selecting the right Norwegian word, since they have more choice: eg. jeg tror, jeg synes, jeg taenk osv.

 

[ehkzu]

So I take it from the learned folk in this forum that there is not currently a consensus on how Earth got the amt. of water it currently has? --that many say Orpheus blew off the original water envelope & we acquired what we now have via comets + outgassing, but this isn't solidly established so far? <br /><br />--and that if Earth hadn't gotten gobsmacked, "land" would be a few islands & archipelagos representing the peaks of the Himalayas, Sierras, Alps and the like.

 

[nexium]

Hi ehkzu: It depends on how Earth got it's Moon. If they formed together at about the present location: then they shared the water and the moon lost much of it's water, or it is far below the crust. Neil

 

[nexium]

An enourmous impactor, would likely change the present platetonics and how heat gets from deep in the Earth to the surface. A cooler interior would mean lot's more water below the surface and perhaps less on the surface even if the total was larger. Neil

 

[alpha_taur1]

Current astronomical consensus is that the moon formed when a planetoid the size of Mars collided with the proto Earth. The Earth absorbed the colliding planetoid.<br /><br />This is confirmed by isotope analysis. Here is a brief summary. I used to have some of the original papers somewhere, but I can't seem to find them <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /><br /> http://scienceweek.com/2004/sc040903-1.htm<br /><br />The main evidence from memory is in the oxygen isotope analysis. Hopefully an astronomer will back this up.

 

[ehkzu]

That's what I'd thought. <br /><br />I'm still wondering what Earth would be like waterwise if we'd never gotten hit by Orpheus & consequently produced the Moon. Deep water with a few islands (Everest, Mauna Kea, Sierra ridges & the like)? <br /><br />Then during periods when axial tilt reached 90 degrees, facing the Sun, great extremes of heat & cold, with 6 month days & nights at the poles, perpetual twilight at the equator, hellacious storms from the differentials. Earth w/Moon a lot nicer.

 

[taolung]

Haven't read through the rest of these posts, so forgive me if I'm repeating something, but:<br /><br />Increased wobble means more extreme temperature variations. With areas repeatedly freezing solid and then getting really hot over the course of the years, life would have a much more difficult time of evolving.<br /><br />No moon means no tides. Tides were probably extremely important in the creation and evolution of life. Without something to stir the pot, not much would develop, so to speak.<br /><br />The moon has been kind enough to absorb a lot of meteor impacts, deflecting others, and clearing space of debris for us. Without it, Earth would have experienced a lot more impacts, possibly also stunting the evolution of life.

 

[ehkzu]

You're stating the thesis of the book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe" by Ward (a geologist) & Brownlee (an astronomer). <br /><br />As long as you're pondering an anthropic Earth, you can also ponder this anthropic universe, with all its seemingly arbitrary constants making it life-friendly, which religious scientists offer as proof of divine intervention.<br /><br />However, given the number of stars/planets out there, I'm inclined to think we're not unique, but probably our Earth is one rare cookie--greatly to be cherished. And that the nearest other planet with such life-friendly conditions is probably far, far away. <br /><br />I'm basing the universe I'm creating for my scifi novel series on just such a situation BTW. <br /><br />One question: hadn't heard about Earth getting Venusized without our bigmoon. I'd thought it'd just have a whole lot of water, since it's farther from Sol. Conversely, if Venus had gotten a bigmoon and some additional mass from its own Orpheus collision, could it have become life-friendly at its closer distance to Sol?

 

[Saiph]

First, I'd argue that universal and galactic metallicity levels werent sufficient for life 10 billion years ago, and likely weren't high enough much before ~5 billion years ago (maybe a billion or so years prior). Remember, the heavy elements require stellar processing to be formed and distributed.<br /><br />Is it an accident? It very well could be. We can't even begin to talk about the strange coincidence until we knnow how many other chances there were. Maybe there are billions of earth like planets out there, and we're one of only a few that had such a fortuitous collision (if it is required at all, which is a bit debatable).<br /><br />If the earth is only one out of billions of possible encounters, it doesn't seem quite so intentional anymore. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p align="center"><font color="#c0c0c0"><br /></font></p><p align="center"><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">--------</font></em></font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">----</font></em></font><font color="#666699">SaiphMOD@gmail.com </font><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">-------------------</font></em></font></p><p><font color="#999999"><em><font size="1">"This is my Timey Wimey Detector.  Goes "bing" when there's stuff.  It also fries eggs at 30 paces, wether you want it to or not actually.  I've learned to stay away from hens: It's not pretty when they blow" -- </font></em></font><font size="1" color="#999999">The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>

 

[ehkzu]

No reason not to think of it as an accident. With the gazillions of solar systems in this universe there are bound to be at least millions of ones with all the factors we've got--spread across the entire universe, however. So even if interstellar travel were possible, it might explain the lack of visitation. <br /><br />OTOH the odds of us having evolved on an advanced life-friendly planet are 100%. <br /><br />Call it a happy accident. I'm sure not complaining.

 

[newtonian]

Saiph - Well, I agree with Steve on it not likely being an accident.<br /><br />However, to really nail this down we need the math. <br /><br />And the fine tuned details<br /><br />That takes research and time. <br /><br />Meanwhile I will be watching this thread to note what you and others come up with.

 

[vogon13]

I'm thinking something very similar to the impact scenario also produced ring system around Iapetus. Don't know if secondary body was created or not, but material blasted from surface may have acheived orbit inside Roche limit and interacted with itself to generate a ring system that then orbitally decayed onto surface, creating equatorial ridge system. Impact theory seems to be useful in explaining several items across solar system. Wonder about some of the binary asteroids, too. Asgard and Valhalla formations on Callisto, created by binary object at same time? Where'd binary object come from?<br /><br />Fascinating topic. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>