What Happens If A Giant Meteor Hits The Moon?

In fact, the Moon is no stranger to meteorites, unlike Earth. We can already make this inference when we look at the craters on its surface. The fact that meteorites do not shake the Earth that much while affecting the Moon is also related to the fact that the atmosphere on the Moon is not as strong as on Earth. In this way, even though meteorites are small in diameter, they can have a large impact area as they move at enormous speeds.

We can say that the moon has handled the meteors that have hit it quite well so far. Because he can still shine above us. But if a meteor of its size were to hit it one day and we lost the Moon, would it be fatal to us?

“Even if our dwarf planet Ceres lands on the moon, it might move our moon a little…”

Ceres, Moon and Earth

According to Wynn-Williams, that would be a very minor move. Ceres is known to have a diameter of 946 km. The diameter of the Moon is about 3475 km. The force created by the collision between these two is also overcome by the momentum gained by the Moon as it rotates around the Earth. So in this scenario there is no Moon standing still as Ceres is heading towards it.

If we want a collision that will wipe out the Moon, we need a meteor nearly the same size as it.

According to Clark Chapman of the Southwest Research Institute, it is unlikely that the Moon would come out alive from such a scenario. Moreover, there is no doubt that remnants from the Moon after such a collision would threaten life on Earth. Fortunately, there is no such meteor around yet.

So what would we do if we wanted to blow up the Moon instead of waiting for a celestial body without questioning our sanity?

Marti Bug Catcher

We evaluate the power of atomic bombs by starting from dynamite on Richter scale. The famous Tsar bomb is about 50 megatons in scale in this context. It should also be noted that this was reduced from 100 megatons for testing purposes. Let’s keep this in mind.

Binding energy is the energy that holds objects like the Moon together. The value of this energy for the moon is about 128 octillion. After a series of small operations, we would need about 575 billion of these bombs to shatter the Moon with a 50-megaton tsar bomb.

Well, let’s say we destroyed the Moon somehow, would life end on Earth?

Life would have been pretty tough here and we would probably have suffered a lot of casualties, but it wouldn’t be very consistent to say that life on the planet would have been completely destroyed. There is no doubt that life will become very difficult, however.

There are two main reasons for this; the first is the irregularity of the tides

The absence of the Moon would have had effects on tides as far as climate change. There is no doubt that ecosystems will be adversely affected by this. Even though the Moon would no longer have an effect on the oceans, the Sun’s gravitational pull would. This too was weaker than that of the Moon, so the water level would recede.

Another important issue is that the tilted position of the Earth will deteriorate.

Our world does not turn upright. Instead, it rotates tilted at a 23.5-degree angle. This aspect is balanced with the Moon. If the Moon were no longer there, we could even see this angle go up to 45 degrees. This would mean that we would no longer see a Sun shining on the equator, but rather on the poles.

It should also be noted that this will lead to extreme cold in the interior. It is not difficult to predict that life will become more difficult than it has ever been, when the darkness of night is added to the extreme cold here.

We have written similar content about the Moon before. You can find them below.