What would happen if the moon collided with the earth?
Technically the moon cannot collide into the earth, in fact the earth and the moon are travelling father and farther away from each other. But if something would hit the moon which would make the moon collide into earth, there would be the same energy as 720 atomic bombs. The earth would heat up and kill all life on earth in a matter of hours.
So how was the moon created?
Our moon is big compared to other moons of other planets, it’s almost the size of mars. Its diameter is a quarter of earths. There is 382,942 kilometers between the earth and the moon. The moon has a gravitational pull that is a sixth of earths, the moon controls the tides and it reflects the light off the sun. When the earth was forming another planet collided into the earth, and a piece of the earth came out of the crater the asteroid formed. The piece of rock that came out of the earth cooled down and became the moon, which would explain why the moon has no core and how it’s mostly rock and it’s small size.
What would happen to life if the moon collided with earth?
Scientists have calculated if an asteroid with a 6-mile radius would hit the earth, traveling at least 20 kilometers per second it would have catastrophic events, the moon has a radius of 1079.6 miles. So, if an asteroid the size of the moon would collided into the earth it would be 180 times worse than 4 billion atomic bombs, which would heat the ozone layer which would kill all plants and animals. There is a good chance that the moon will never collide with the earth but if it did, there would be a large chunk of the earth missing. The moon was formed by an asteroid hitting the earth, a chunk of the earth was hit from the asteroid and separated from the rest of the earth. It would take a matter of hours for all life to end on earth. The earth would heat up too fast and it would get too hot for life to survive.
Is it even possible for the moon to collide with earth?
Because of the gravitational pull between the earth and the moon, they have started to become deformed. The moon is starting to have a bulge at the top and the bottom, the moon is starting to become more and more oval shaped. The earth has the same effect, the tides, the way the moon pulls the tides, it’s the same as the earth pulls the moon. It is like a tug-of-war with gravity, there is a lot of tension between the two. The moon and earth orbit a common center of gravity in the earth’s core, it’s like there is an imaginary line connecting earth’s core and the moon’s core. When any object spins in circles, it creates centrifugal force which pushes outward away from the center of rotation. For example, a ride at an amusement park, there is tons of centrifugal force there, when it spins faster and faster it makes everything stick to the wall. If there is an object in the middle of the imaginary line between the earth and the moon it has to be in a certain spot or it would fall toward the earth or the moon, like a cart on a mountain, just a hair’s width away from falling towards the moon or the earth. The gravitational forces between the two don’t let the moon collided into the earth unless another force hit the moon, the moon and the earth are slowly travelling farther and farther away from each other.
Biography:
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- Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors. (2016). In A. H. Blackwell & E. Manar (Eds.), UXL Encyclopedia of Weather and Natural Disasters (2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 48-53). UXL. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3629500021/SCIC?u=43riss&sid=SCIC&xid=98cbb09e
- Moon. (2010). In Earth Sciences for Students. Macmillan Reference USA. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CV2640550157/SCIC?u=43riss&sid=SCIC&xid=a4bb6c11
- Lerner, K. L. (2020). Moon. In Gale Science Online Collection. Gale. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/WNUUKI754101447/SCIC?u=43riss&sid=SCIC&xid=aedd80a5
- Space.com. (2014, June 18). Here’s What A Cosmic Tug-Of-War Is Doing To The Moon. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/earth-gravity-moon_n_5506759
- O`Callaghan, J. (2019, March 11). Simulation Shows What Would Happen If The Moon Hit Earth. Retrieved November 10, 2020, from https://www.iflscience.com/space/what-would-happen-if-moon-hit-earth/
- Andrews, A. (2018, January 23). Full Moon Illustration · Free Stock Photo – Pexels. Retrieved November 11, 2020, from https://www.pexels.com/photo/full-moon-illustration-861443/
Looks great Sophia! Next time embed the link so I am able to go straight to the source from your blog so I can read more about it. Very interesting topic!
Thank you for the positive feedback
Cool project! I really like how you added the simulation of what it would look like had this happened in real life. It was a cool thing to be able to “watch” for myself and get a better understanding on your subject.
I was happy and excited to listen on what would happen if the moon crashed into our home known as the Earth.