What if the Earth had two moons?

Arabia Weather - The moon plays an important role in our existence and life on Earth, as it affects our days, the seasons of the year, and the phenomena of tides and tides. Therefore, we cannot imagine life continuing in its current form if the moon disappeared, but what if the Earth had more than one moon? Would that be good for our planet?

What if the Earth had two moons?

NASA scientists believe that the current Moon was formed 4.5 billion years ago when a planet the size of Mars collided with Earth. The debris from the collision flew into space, began to orbit around the Earth, and then gradually collected to form the Moon as we know it today. That's not something we'd want to see again, and the gravitational effects of a second moon — even after its dramatic formation — would certainly be no better (although we likely wouldn't be alive to witness it anyway).

The harms of the second moon are more than its benefits

In his book, Cummins follows a different path to the formation of Earth's second moon — one that would not lead to the extinction of Earth's entire population. Its second moon, Luna , will be snapped up by our first moon after Earth and the current Moon have settled into a working relationship with each other. Luna will orbit the Earth on a path halfway between the Earth and the Moon. But as Luna settles into orbit, our experience will be hell on Earth. The gravitational pull of the new moon will create tides up to eight times higher than the current tide, creating massive tidal waves larger than anything we've seen before. These tidal waves will trigger earthquakes and increased volcanic activity, which will continue for years, causing a mass extinction of marine life.

Once things settle down, life will be completely different. With two full moons, the light at night will be brighter, and we will have fewer hours of true darkness. Cities built along coastlines - such as New York, San Francisco or even London - will be affected by tidal erosion and buildings will be destroyed.

The two moons may collide and cause disasters

In fact, our home moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of 4 centimeters per year. If we assume that the second moon, Luna, is gradually moving away from Earth at a higher rate, we can imagine the catastrophic effect of a terrible collision between the two moons one day, causing them to break into millions of small pieces. Some of these small parts will fall to the surface of the Earth and may cause multiple disasters, while some will be launched into space far away from us.

Most of this debris will continue to orbit Earth. Because these pieces are small and varied in size, their rotation speeds will vary around the planet, which will cause them to spread out in orbits forming rings similar to the rings of exoplanets like Saturn.

The existence of a second moon of the Earth is not excluded

While Comins' book is hypothetical, some researchers theorize that Earth actually has two — or sometimes more — moons. These scientists say we capture small asteroids that make several orbits around Earth over the course of weeks or months before departing again into space. They also believe that this happens over and over again with no positive or negative effects, since these wandering moons are so small. Given our position in the universe, it is not too far-fetched to assume that there are two moons. After all, Saturn and Jupiter each have more than 50 moons, and even our closest galactic neighbor, Mars, has two.

Source:

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