Naked Science - Moon Mysteries

Imagine our world ravaged by hurricane-force winds with temperatures ranging from scorching heat to freezing cold. Imagine that a day lasts only 6 hours in a world where only primitive life forms evolved. This could be our planet if Earth didn't have a

moon

. The Moon is 81 million billion. A ton of rock and dust more than 2,100 m in diameter, orbiting almost a quarter of a million miles above our heads, it is the second brightest object in our skies, with temperatures ranging between 250° and -380°. and its severity is one sixth lower. of the Earth the mountains rise to 16,000 feet and millions of craters cover the dry, dusty surface where liquid water has never been found this is not a hospitable place and yet we associate the

moon

with romance and mystery the man on the moon It enchants all lovers all over the world and feeds our hunger for supernatural myths and legends.

We are far from the only ones who have a moon. There are at least 135 other moons orbiting the planets in our solar system. Saturn has the most with 46, while we have at least 10 mysterious bodies orbiting. our planet five are asteroids temporarily trapped by the Earth's gravitational field and four are probably remains of the Apollo 12 rocket the tenth and largest is our moon since long before the birth of humanity the moon has been the constant companion of the Earth, but until relatively recently we have known little of its true nature or even how it was created, there are several competing theories, one suggests that the Moon is simply an asteroid or planet trapped by the Earth's gravity, another attributes the creation to a giant impact on Earth that expelled masses of material that were formed. the moon Clues as to which theory is most likely to be correct emerged when men first landed on the moon and began to discover the secrets of creation buried within lunar rocks 5 4 3 2 1 zero lip now down the lamb Now that's one small step for man, one for man between 1969 and 1972, six missions launched to the Moon, wow, what a place, what a view it is, John, it's absolutely unreal, only 12 humans have walked on the Moon, But these astronauts did more than simply rewrite history, they also returned with lunar rock samples.

These lunar rocks are strikingly similar to Earth rocks but contain much less iron. This seemingly small difference offers a big clue about how the moon was created. moon began with an explosion let's go back 4 and 2 billion years into the history of the Earth the Moon does not yet exist the inner solar system has approximately twice as many planets as the four that exist today many of them are on an accelerated path towards the destruction between them is a planet about half the size of Earth from called Thea who in Greek mythology was the mother goddess of the Moon the two bodies are on an inexorable collision course Theo is getting closer and closer to Earth the planet approaching is a terrifying sight astrophysicist Jeff Taylor studies the fiery birth of the moon describes the view from Earth As Thea runs towards it, it might have started to look like a star or a fairly large star, but then, As it got closer and closer, this thing got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until it filled the sky moments before the big impact. and then everything would disappear for you as a witness and there would be a giant flash because everything would be red hot and if you were with a friend of yours on the other side of the earth, they would see the flash in the atmosphere. and feels giant earthquakes passing through the Earth f is 4,000 mil in diameter to put its size in perspective the meteorite that is believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs was about 6 miles wide Thea travels at 25,000 mph, which is about 20 times faster than a suponic jet This is a Mars-sized object, which is about half the diameter of Earth, making it a gigantic event of unimaginable power.

As the planets approach, their immense gravitational fields tear each other's outer layers to pieces and then collide catastrophically. The impact is equivalent. to billions of Megaton bombs the impact cuts through continents and sections of the Earth's crust launching surface rocks into space these surface rocks contain only a small amount of iron the atmosphere around the molten planet is full of rock Steam Earth's gravity pulls towards Most of the debris is left behind, but some are catapulted into space, although they cannot escape completely, but instead become trapped by Earth's gravity forming a ring of red-hot dust and rocks around the planet in a process called accretion: dust and rocks in circles collide and merge with other fragments to create larger blocks we can represent this process with olive oil and water, the water here represents the space around the Earth and the olive oil is the debris thrown around of the Earth by this giant impact and each little drop that we pour here represents a certain piece of Matter thrown by the Earth, we are going to stir it up indicating the way in which the debris moves around the Earth, but when Taylor stops stirring, the Drops collide with each other and group together as larger drops and that process of small things colliding. each other, getting bigger is called accretion and that's how the moon formed around the Earth, that's how the Earth formed around the Sun, as debris accumulates their combined gravity becomes strong enough to to attract even more debris.

This chain reaction does not stop until Billions of fragments of vaporized rock have gathered together into a ball of red-hot matter in less than 100 years. This cools and forms a solid piece of rock. 150 times the volume of the Earth. It becomes the Moon when it forms. It's only 17,000 miles away, but no. Don't stay so close that her violent birth takes her away from us on a journey that will last 10 billion years. Absolute proof that the Moon is moving away came in 1969, when astronauts left an 18-inch reflective plate on the Moon's surface. By bouncing lasers off this plate, scientists can precisely determine the Moon's distance from Earth to within an inch.

These calculations reveal that the Moon is moving away from Earth at a rate of about 1.5 inches per year. So why is the Moon moving on 1990s supercomputers? gave scientists a more accurate picture of what happened 4.5 billion years ago. Computer models of the creation impact reveal that the collision of Thea and Earth is an indirect hit. A rotation force leaves the Earth. This rotation gives the Earth its days and its nights, but the enormous power of the collision causes the Earth to spin much faster than the Moon, which orbits around it in these early days. The Earth rotates once every 6 hours, four times faster than today, while the Moon takes 20 days to complete one orbit, so the Moon orbits more slowly than the Moon.

The Earth rotates, yet the early Moon is 15 times closer than it is today, making the effect of its gravity so strong that, as this graph demonstrates, it lifts a bulge on the Earth's surface directly beneath it. she. This bulge moves like a tide across the Earth's surface with its own gravity pulling on the moon because the Earth rotates faster than its satellite, the Bulge is always ahead of the moon so it constantly pulls on the moon. moon forward, which accelerates it, any object traveling in a circular motion will move outward as it accelerates much like a hammer is thrown at the Olympics as the moon accelerates in its orbit begins to move away Earth's spiral is a journey that will continue for billions of years at the time of its birth the moon orbits the earth 15 times closer than it does today, but this close proximity puts the moon in great danger it faces. a bombardment of thousands of asteroids that will destroy 80% of its surface now 4 billion years ago a time that scientists call 4 giga years ago or gya the moon now orbits at 86,000 M away still three times closer to the Earth that what is today from our planet the moon eclipses everything in the sky during this first period of its life the moon has its most profound effects on the Earth the massive collision that creates the Moon is so powerful that it knocks down the Earth It is unbalanced on an axis of 23.5°.

It is this inclination that gives us our spring, summer, autumn and winter. If we rotate on a vertical axis like the planet Mercury. Seasons would not exist everywhere. They would receive 12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness. The poles. It would be programmed in an eternal frozen twilight, while the equator would warm in endless heat, but the Moon does more than simply produce this tilt: it also maintains it. The strong gravitational pull of our young Moon acts as a global gyroscope that stabilizes the Earth's axis. Lyn Roth's son explains that the reason we have this constant obliquity is because the moon helps stabilize the Earth's obliquity.

If we didn't have a moon, we'd end up with what astronomers call a chaotic obliquity. We have a fairly large shift and fairly low time scales without our global stabilizer our axis could vary between 0 and 90° this would alter the distribution of sunlight across the planet's surface devastating our finely balanced climate systems weather patterns would become Crazy the tropics could be frozen under the ice and Antarctica was transformed into a vast desert, but fortunately the moon saves us from such disasters and allows life to exist. It turns out that it may have had a really profound influence on how life on Earth originated and evolved; in fact, I might almost be able to. to argue that we wouldn't be here today filming this if the moon wasn't in the sky not all planets in our solar system are so lucky Mars has two moons but they are too small to stabilize its tilt as a result the red The planet rotates much more than the earth.

Some scientists believe this is one of the reasons why there is no life there now. When you look at our Moon today, the first thing you notice are the craters that tell astrophysicists like David are ashamed of a distant and violent. Beyond that, you can look up from your own backyard and see impact craters on the lunar surface. There are more than 300,000 craters from half a mile to more than 500 thousand in diameter on the lunar surface. Most of these craters come from meteorites that hit the Moon. The biggest crater you can. What can be seen from our planet is the embryo basin, it is 700 m wide.

Lunar craters come in various sizes, but almost all were created at about the same time, about 4 billion years ago. A chance alignment of the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn changes the shape of their orbits. This creates a slingshot effect that launches asteroids into the inner solar system directly toward Earth and the young moon. For millions of years, asteroids bombard the entire inner solar system. Some of these impact events would have produced impact craters the size of continents or larger. These types of impact events had the ability to destroy any ocean on the planet's surface and overheat the atmospheres.

Life as we know it could not persist on the Earth's surface. This period of intense bombardment is called the lunar cataclysm. Earth's gravity makes it worse by dragging meteorites. and the asteroids directly towards itself alone the small Moon could have escaped with less damage but it is too close to the Earth the asteroids heading to impact the Earth hit the Moon instead, the Moon becomes the first victim of collateral damage that forms most of the craters on the Moon. During the lunar cataclysm, 80% of the lunar surface is destroyed. Molten basalt oozes from Fishers and fills impact craters creating seas of lava over millions of years, these will cool, solidify and become Maria or seas like the Sea of ​​Tranquility, is the dark basalt rock pattern that creates the face of man and the moon as we know it today David Cring demonstrates exactly what happens on the surface of the Moon when a meteorite hits.

He releases a 5B rock from 50 feet above a sand pit onto the impact sand. Launched into the air during the lunar cataclysm, some impacts are so large that the material shot upward never returns to the Moon's surface, but is instead propelled into space, where it is trapped by Earth's gravity, just 86,000 m away. away. Some of these rocks were saved. Towards our planet you would actually have seen a huge column of debris rise from the lunar surface, this cloud would have in fact enveloped the entire lunar surface and from that cloud would have come fragments of rock that were thrown to the Earth and would have flowed through the atmospherelike intense fireballs to land uh Rocky components on the Earth's surface these lunar meteorites are incredibly rare this is part of one of only 30 lunar meteorites ever found so this is a sample that fell in Africa the analyzes of samples like this They tell us that there was a catastrophic increase in the number of impacts affecting the Moon between 3.9 and 4 billion years ago.

Lunar meteorites contain a record of the geological history of the inner solar system, as it was about 4 billion years ago. These rocks are older than the oldest rocks. Rocks on Earth The existence of lunar meteorites on Earth made scientists wonder if rocks can be catapulted from the Moon to Earth, could rocks from Earth also reach the Moon, and if those could be found meteorites on Earth, could contain fascinating clues about what was happening on Earth? The Earth billions of years ago to release anything from the Earth's strong gravity requires immense Force, much more power than it takes to launch a lunar meteorite from the surface of the Moon, for example the space shuttle. uses 15 million horsepower to escape Earth's gravity, the lunar module.

Only 6,300 horsepower were needed to lift off from the Moon, but how big of an impact would be needed to eject debris from Earth? Award-winning IST astrophysicist Guermo González of Iowa State University has discovered the answer to that question. The crater in northern Arizona. Meteor crater, uh, even that thing that's really big when you get close to it wasn't big enough to catapult a significant amount of material beyond the Earth's atmosphere, but when you talk about, say, the creator killing to the dinosaurs, uh. in Mexico now that one was probably big enough to start launching at least a small amount of material to Earth and have some of it land on the Moon.

Impacts on Earth during the lunar cataclysm are much greater than the dinosaur extinction event. They impact with such power that they punch holes in the Earth's atmosphere. Rocks and debris thrown into the sky. They escape through these holes. Once in space, some of the debris is sucked up by the Moon orbiting just 86,000 miles away. it drifts away and eventually reaches the Moon where it lands and then when it lands on the Moon of course it could break up into smaller pieces depending on how fast it hits the surface upon landing on the lunar surface they stay perfectly. preserved in the vacuum of space, the early Earth unfortunately erased its early history, uh, but it left a record of it, at least a partial record of itself on the moon and if we can find some fossils or at least remains of early life and these terrestrial rocks. on the moon that can help us answer these difficult questions about the origin of life González believes that more than 1,000 pounds of Earth rock could be spread over every square mile of the moon's surface;

It's the only place in the solar system we can go. to learn about the origin of life because once Earth's rocks reach the moon, they are preserved there in a pristine form, there is no water cycle on the moon, there is no more active geology, and they become buried relatively quickly by the material from other impacts. on the moon and that is why they are preserved from the solar wind and other things. Until now, no terrestrial rocks have been found on the moon. González will have to wait until the next lunar mission in the hope that these priceless rocks can be discovered.

The first half billion years of the Moon's journey from Earth have been violent. Over the next billion years, the Moon continues its Escape from Earth and into space. Their passage changes the face of our planet beyond all recognition. The power of its gravity creates tides. Thousands of feet high churn the Earth's oceans, creating the conditions for complex chemical compounds to form. The Moon is helping the creation of life on Earth. 3 billion years ago, the Moon is still escaping the Earth and now orbits at almost 200,000 Mi. Far away the effect of its gravity is weaker but it still has the power to radically change our planet.

For now the Earth has water and oceans and the Moon is stirring things up. It is too far away to have a dramatic effect on the Earth's rocks but the Moon is affecting the oceans as the Moon passes overhead, its gravity creates tides in the water, but these are not like the tides of today, they are thousands of feet high. Astronomer Neil studies how the early Moon affected the tides when the Moon first formed. If the tides were something like a thousand times higher than they are today, they would have gone inland like a 10,000 foot high wall of water, like a huge mountain, they would probably have covered hundreds of miles and then come back scouring the land taking the debris from the Earth's surface to the oceans the material to the seas contains minerals and nutrients the tides created by the moon stir them up in the most crucial cocktail in Earth's history the primordial soup different combinations of minerals come together and tear apart It is in this violent crucible where the correct combination of minerals is forged into life.

Cumin believes that the spark of life could never have occurred without the power of the moon to churn the primordial soup. The moon created those tremendously high tides when it first formed. allowed the oceans to fill with minerals that allowed life to evolve that allowed us to be here the tides may even have helped the first DNA evolve some scientists believe that changes in chemical concentrations as the tides rise and fall cause the DNA splitting and replicating The huge tides induced by the Moon have an additional vital role to play in Earth's history. They help the planet's entire atmosphere calm down and become a more hospitable place in which more complex life can evolve in our hindsight. a billion years ago the earth was a very different place the impact created by the moon makes the earth spin faster it spins much faster than now as a day lasts only 6 hours this high speed spin has devastating effects around the earth The rotation of our planet is one of the most influential factors that determine the global climate.

The planet's spin creates winds and vortexes in the atmosphere. The faster the spin, the faster and more violent the winds were billions of years ago, when our planet was spinning four times faster than the atmosphere. hits the earth when a hurricane hits today 100 mph winds uh trees are washed over houses lose their roofs um tremendous amount of flooding but in a day or two it goes away things go back to normal people go on with their lives imagine if we lived a world in which those types of winds were continuous this is the climate of our rapidly spinning early Earth a place with constant hurricane force winds in the forest and giant tides of 10,000 feet this is a climate too hostile for life to evolve into forms more complex, but the devastating tides that the Moon is creating begin to pacify the infernal climate the tides affect the speed of rotation of our planet eventually lengthening a day from six to 24 hours I want to show you how the moon has slowed down the rotation of the Earth from 6 hours to 24 hours I'm going to do that with this globe here representing the Earth, of course, and this lens representing the moon.

Ruth will be the moon. Well, here's the Earth spinning much faster than the moon orbiting the Earth today, of course, the Earth. It rotates once every 24 hours and the moon circles us about once every 28 days or so now the moon creates the tides, the high tide, the high tide is almost directly below the moon, so for example there would be a high tide just Here, created by the Moon, the Moon lags slightly behind these tides because it orbits more slowly than the Earth rotates. The Moon's gravity pulls on these tidal bulges creating drag that slows the Earth's spin and, as water hits continents, islands, and more.

Nasty stuff in the way the friction between them slows the Earth from a 6 hour day to a 24 hour day as the Earth's rotation slows the atmosphere stops whipping hurricane force winds around the world They are no longer the norm and life is more complex the forms evolve the relative peace and calm of our planet I really believe that we owe the moon our existence today without it the world would have evolved differently and as a result we would have evolved differently We would not be the creatures we are. The power of the nearby moon has dramatically reshaped our planet over the next 3 billion years.

The moon continues its journey into space. The influence of the moon has diminished but not disappeared. Some scientists believe it causes earthquakes. and volcanic eruptions while many laymen still believe that the full moon affects our human behavior in strange and inexplicable ways today the moon orbits the Earth 1/4 million miles away it is 15 times farther from Earth than when it was Formed for the first time it appears as a distant, mystical object in the sky and its gravitational pull is far Weaker than it used to be, the Moon's gravity is now so small that it exerts the same upward pull as a PE held at about 20 inches above the head, but some people still believe that even this weak power of the Moon affects human behavior.

The diurnal orbit around the Earth is called the lunar cycle. During the lunar cycle, the Moon's appearance changes because it is constantly moving relative to the Sun, and Earth volcanologist Steve Omera believes this changing alignment of the Sun and Moon is critical. I'm going to show you. how the moon goes through its lunar cycle volleyball is the moon I am the earth now the first thing you should know is that the moon revolves around the Earth in about a month now we are going to start in this position here which is where the Moon is directly between the Earth and the Sun this is a new moon when I look at the Moon I see it completely in Shadow now as the moon moves in its orbit you can begin to see that part of its disk illuminates slightly and forms a crescent, this It is the crescent phase as the moon moves more, you see it in half phase when it is completely opposite the sun in our sky here we have a full moon, the entire moon is visible fully illuminated now as the moon continues in its orbit. we see the shadow returning and the phase is decreasing this is the waning moon now we have a waning crescent and finally we return about a month later to the new moon and the cycle begins again the full moon has long been associated with an aggression Mysterious and terrifying studies show that the behavior of some animals changes during the lunar cycle.

Some creatures' entire reproduction cycle is dictated by the moon. Scientists have investigated the link between predation and the full moon. Researchers believe that the increase in Moonlight helps some nocturnal hunters track and kill their prey, although the idea that wolves are more prevalent on the full moon is nothing more than a myth, however, if some mammals become more active in the full moon, this aggressive lunar trait could extend to humans, San Francisco street officers Healey and Mahoney of The San Francisco Police Department prepare for another night patrolling the city. They've been policing the tough tenderloin district for the last 10 years, but this isn't just any night, it's a full moon and during a full moon things definitely feel a little hotter, I think some of the clientele we deal with They think there is a full moon every day, I think, but there is a notable difference.

You could ask anyone who works in service jobs, like police, firefighters, paramedics. Hospital workers, everyone will tell you that. That during times of full moon business simply increases, but is there any scientific evidence that human behavior is affected by the moon? In 1976, the American Journal of Psychology studied 34,4318 crimes and found that they occurred most frequently during a full moon. One year later. Researchers studying 18,490 psychiatric patients found that hospital admissions peaked during the new moon; However, a number of more recent studies reveal no link between human behavior and the lunar cycle, and yet many people still believe in the power of the full moon, possibly because of horror movies. and folklore for generations have led us to believe that murder, death, and even mythical creatures like werewolves are linked to the full moon, it's no surprise that over time we begin to believe the link is true.

I like that PL doctor, help me and the myth of the full moon stays alive. The moon's effects on humans may be minimal, but some scientists believe thatits gravity still exerts an important influence on the planet itself. It's not just the appearance of the moon that alters with the lunar cycle its gravitational pull also varies in the new moon when the Sun and Moon are BL their combined gravity pulls even more than usual on Earth as the Moon revolves around the Earth pulls us in different directions when there is a full moon, the Sun and the Moon pull in opposite directions in a kind of astronomical tug-of-war for most of the lunar cycle there is no danger to the Earth, but when the Sun and Moon are aligned, their combined gravity creates maximum stress on the Earth's crust for some years.

Scientists suggest that this can trigger devastating natural phenomena. Volcanologists Steve and Donna Oma use this cycle to help them predict eruptions, while other scientists check sulfur levels and study seismographic data to predict eruptions. Steve and Donna plot the position of the Moon that they believe holds the power. To trigger eruptions at certain points in their orbit, the Omas believe that in the Sun and Moon's complicated cycle of tugs and pulls, increased tension can distort the molten rock beneath the Earth at the most unstable points in the crust. , where volcanoes form, the pressure sometimes becomes too much and triggers an eruption Oma's Eureka moment comes in 1996 on an expedition to the discontinued volcano called Arinal in Costa Rica Well, the best thing is that all volcanoes are different, they're like people they have different personalities I mean obviously there are different types of scientific volcanoes this is a shield volcano that has very fluid eruptions straddling volcanoes have huge eruptions um on volcanoes that we haven't actually gone into any and like the arnal volcano we call it brat because it is always during his two expeditions arnal lives up to it.

Due to his nickname of erupting 15 times, they realize that the largest eruptions occur when the Moon is directly overhead. By tracking the position of the moon above the arnal, the Omas predict eruptions with 80% accuracy, a millimeter accuracy unparalleled in the world of volcanology. In one of them, in fact, he woke up the villagers and told them to prepare, there will be an eruption at 12:30 and at 12:30, the thing erupted right on time since 1996, the Omas claim to have used the moon to correctly predict eruptions around the world. Either I have to be the luckiest person on Earth or the Moon is causing volcanic eruptions, but the Moon can cause natural disasters on an even larger scale than volcanoes.

A scientist now believes the Moon may have caused two of the worst natural disasters in recent years. October 2005 Pakistan earthquake and 2004 Asian tsunami Today, the Moon is still on its journey away from Earth at 1.5 inches per year, even from a quarter of a million miles in space, its gravitational pull It can still affect our planet. It is suggested that the moon can cause volcanoes, but geologist James Berkland argues that it has a much more destructive role. He believes that the moon causes earthquakes. Earthquakes that kill thousands of people. 1994 and Berkeland travels to Peru to witness that rare moment when the sun and moon align perfectly. creating a solar eclipse in Peru, a big earthquake is called a teramoto and we saw this big eclipse and the Peruvian guide said, "I'm so glad you were able to see our eclipse in Peru." We have a tradition: we watch the eclipse and then wait for the earthquake.

This ancient Peruvian belief that solar eclipses are involved in triggering teramotos, or earthquakes, supports something Berkland has been researching for the past three decades. They know what I have known for 50. Almost years that alignment with the Sun, Moon and Earth can often cause earthquakes. The Earth's crust is made up of seven tectonic plates that collide and rub against each other, creating a series of faults at these points, the opposing plates scrape against each other. sometimes sliding or pushing up, this sudden movement causes earthquakes. Berkland believes that the relative position of the moon and sun on these fault lines is critical in triggering earthquakes.

When I saw the tides of the ocean due to the passage of the Moon, then it occurred to me that maybe I could loosen the fault lines and in a way lubricate The Faults and make them easier to slide. He monitors the location of the Sun and Moon during the lunar cycle as they pass over these danger zones. It also takes into account how close the Moon is to the Earth since the moon's orbit is not a perfect circle it is elliptical the closest point of the moon's orbit is called pery and the furthest point is called mono at perigee the attraction of the moon on the Earth is 20% stronger than on a G now the Earth is here and the moon travels around the Earth in a very elliptical orbit, this is an exaggeration, but when it is at its close point we call it parag um, it's only 221,000 miles from Earth when the moon closes its effect. in our tides is much greater than here at the far point, about 253,000 miles away, just 2 weeks later, combining all this information, Berkeley calculates how much pressure the Moon is putting on certain faults around the world as it passes over . he suggests that a new moon at perigee can actually cause unstable faults to slip.

His technique has allowed him to predict several earthquakes in the last decade, but his theories are controversial. In 1989, Berkland was suspended from his job as a geologist for Santa Clara County, California, until he promised to stop making predictions that caused mass panic. Other scientists doubt there is a link between the Moon and earthquakes, but Berkeley says some of them his predictions have been proven correct October 1989 Berkland warns the city of San Francisco that a major earthquake is coming to strike a few days after his warning during the World Series Berland's tragic prediction comes true when the World Series earthquake occurred .

He was on the seventh floor of the county building when Boom, the P wave hit and for two seconds I was elated. I got my earthquake and then I didn't want anything to do with it because I was rocked back and forth I held on to the counter it was terrifying the 6.9 magnitude earthquake causes $6 billion in damage and claims 63 lives it's the largest earthquake ever hit Francisco in 880 years able to help police with information predicting a magnitude of 6 and 1 half to 7 in the Bay Area when we haven't had such an earthquake since 196. The earthquake is a pretty good decision .

Berland's ideas are radical and the exact nature of the moon's influence on earthquakes. It is not well understood, however, in 2004, Berkeley predicts that a large earthquake will occur around the time of the full moon, just after Christmas. The earthquake that triggers the Indian Ocean tsunami occurs on December 26, 2004, during a full moon. In 2005, Berkeley predicts a 7.0 earthquake. and within weeks of his prediction, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake hits Pakistan just after a solar eclipse over the country, could this be a demonstration of the Moon's influence on our planet, although that influence is waning? ? Today, the Moon and the Sun appear exactly the same size in the sky. which means the Moon covers the Sun during a solar eclipse, but look into the distant future 500 million years from now and the Moon is so far from Earth that eclipses are a thing of the past in less than 2 billion years. years without the Moon.

The Earth no longer stays on its axis, the planet rocks back and forth, the weather goes crazy and life on Earth is threatened, billions of years in the future, the Moon reaches the end of As its journey away from Earth, its orbit stabilizes in five billion years, the Sun expands as it nears the end of its life, Earth and Moon, so inextricably linked in life, are together in death, engulfed side by side by the impressive heat of our dying Sun.