Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey, brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum and this this is a classic episode from former host Christian Sager. This one is more of a thought experiment than practical science. Let's say the Moon disappeared, not blew up or gradually drifted away, just one day, vamped right out of existence. What would happen here on Earth? Oh? Hey, there, brain Stuff, it's Christian Sager, and it is time you and I had to talk about the Moon. I know we haven't been
there in a while, but it is pretty rad. I mean, we think that about four point five billion years ago, something the size of Mars crashed into Earth and ricocheted into space to form the Moon. It even took some of Earth's mantle with it, So there's ancient chunks of our planet merged with space stuff up there just hanging out in orbit. But even with all at I'm not sure the Moon gets all the credit it deserves. If it wasn't there, things would be a lot different here
on our little blue planet. First, we'd see some pretty dramatic changes to the ocean. The Moon is responsible for most of the effects of tides. Without it, the tides would only be a third of the size that they are now. This is because the Sun would account for the major gravitational pull affecting the altitude of the ocean. And while the Sun is way bigger than the Moon, like like four times bigger, it is also much further away, so the tides it creates only have about of the
strength of our current lunar tides. Surfing wouldn't be the only thing that suffered. Lots of ecosystems rely on the motion and changes of the tides to sustain them. Plus, the Moon holds a bulge of tidal water around Earth's middle that would disperse without its gravity, changing coastlines around the world. Also, did you know that the Moon helps slow down the rotation of Earth yep. Without it, we wouldn't have twenty four hour days. They'd be more like
six to eight hours long. We'd have to remake our calendar to accommodate between eleven hundred and four hundred days per year. Not only would that screw up all of our schedules, but a faster rotation would also increase the amount of wind and storms on our planet. If that's not extreme climate change enough for you, No Moon would also destabilize the Earth's access, unpredictably, changing our tilt with side effects that would render the planet inhospitable to lots
of its creatures. Right now, we're tilted at a lovely twenty three degrees, which gives us relatively mild seasons and environments, but the Moon acts as an external force that stabilizes that angle. Without it, we could wobble anywhere between zero degrees with no seasons and barely any sunlight to eighty five degrees, where the planet would fall over on its
side kitten on a cat nip pie. Mars, for example, wobbles only fifteen and thirty five degrees, and it experiences drastic climate changes where ice drifts all the way from its poles to its equator. Finally, Gang, I don't know if you've noticed, but the moon's pretty darn bright up there in the middle of the night. Sure, the sun is four hundred thousand times brighter, but sometimes it's still hits your eye, you know, like like like a big pizza pie, which means that without it, our nights would
be a lot darker than we're used to. Try stumbling around in the woods without a moon and see how you like it. Today's episode was written by Christian and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio's Has Stuff Works. For more on that and lots of other topics that will hit your eye, visit our home planet how Stuff Works dot com. Plus for more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.