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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Andreas on December 11, 2004, 05:10:12 pm

Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Andreas on December 11, 2004, 05:10:12 pm: Yeah, this just popped into my mind, guess I gotta take my medication more often ;). What do you think would the consequences be of Earth having two moons? How things such as seasons and other things would be different? And how do you think this would have affected the development of, for example, science?

And lastly, are there any books about this subject?
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Rictor on December 11, 2004, 05:15:54 pm: We'de have one normal moon, and one deadly battle-moon. You know, lasers, missles, that sort of thing.

I am confident that my claims have a solid scientific backing .
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Bobboau on December 11, 2004, 05:31:42 pm: Taste the mighty doom of my moons! (http://freespace.volitionwatch.com/blackwater/moondoom.avi)
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Corsair on December 11, 2004, 05:35:37 pm: We'd have some messed up tides.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: IceFire on December 11, 2004, 06:32:35 pm: Different tides, some species would have to be different in their method of migration, things would be twice as odd with a double full moon :D
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Carl on December 11, 2004, 06:36:08 pm: is the second moon the same size as our real one? if so, then everything would be way different. if it's like phobos or deimos then it would be negligible.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Flipside on December 11, 2004, 06:39:27 pm: The bigger the second moon, the worse it gets to be honest...

Our moon sheperds the axis of the planet and keeps it pointing in more or less the same direction, most other planets wobble a lot more than Earth does. It's that which keeps us within the Environmental 'parameters' that allowed so much life to develop.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: aldo_14 on December 11, 2004, 06:50:14 pm: We'd probably have twice the number of werewolf attacks, too.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Flipside on December 11, 2004, 06:51:44 pm: Actually, if they were similar sizes, the gravity tides would probably have ripped the Earth into a Tectonic nightmare to resemble io ;)
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Lynx on December 11, 2004, 06:59:13 pm: I think the Earth axis orientation would be a lot mor unstable, leading to extensive climatic changes an a monthly/yearly basis.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: beatspete on December 11, 2004, 07:34:32 pm: Simple answer : there would be twice as many fake moon landing theories.

It would be interesting, one useful thing about the moon being that it stops earth wobbling too much on its axis, hence preventing drastic climate change. Though i've only really heard discussion about if earth had no moon, basically sayying that it needs one for axial stability. Though half of the planets have more than one moon in this solar system. Are they that ustable.
The main thing is, it depends on the moon. A small asteroid like Mars's moons wouldn't be that important. A large moon like Titan? Its almost a as big as earth, a binary system could acutally form. And that would fudge up a number of things, including the magnetic field which stops us getting 'toasted' by solar flares.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Lynx on December 11, 2004, 07:38:18 pm: It depends how the moon orbits relate to each other. Depending on that it could either mean that the eartha axis gets stabilized or more likely spinning around wildly. As for other planets having mny moons those are gas planets with freaking huge masses..even if they jave over twenty moons like Jupiter it means jack **** since their mass is negligible compared to the main planet.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Carl on December 11, 2004, 08:11:04 pm: yeah, because a good definition of the solar system is: The Sun, Jupiter, and a little bit of other stuff.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Flipside on December 11, 2004, 08:14:57 pm: Pretty much true, well, it;s more or less Sol, Jupiter, Saturn and 'leftovers'
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Grey Wolf on December 11, 2004, 08:19:01 pm: Impossible, assuming the collision formation theory was correct, as two moons would have been unstable.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Flipside on December 11, 2004, 08:26:10 pm: Yep, the theory is still that the moon was stripped from Earths mantle after a collision with something about the size of Mars. So, I'm glad we didn't hit it twice ;)

Actually, I seem to recall the Earth does have 2 'moons' hang on..... I'll go look
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Grey Wolf on December 11, 2004, 08:28:16 pm: IIRC, it actually did hit twice within a day or so. But when they ran the simulation, the scenarios that produced two moons were unstable.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Flipside on December 11, 2004, 08:31:34 pm: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/second_moon_991029.html

Not really moons as such, but I guess if Deimos and Phobos count, so do these ;)
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Bobboau on December 11, 2004, 08:32:28 pm: I go through all the trouble of cutting out that clasic sceen and no one even coments.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Goober5000 on December 11, 2004, 09:37:34 pm: I didn't get it. :nervous:
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Corsair on December 11, 2004, 09:57:28 pm: Me neither.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Bobboau on December 11, 2004, 09:58:14 pm: bah, you people have no sence of culture!
BAH! I say!
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Carl on December 12, 2004, 12:07:38 am: It's Zim. He's piloting Mars.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Bobboau on December 12, 2004, 12:34:43 am: see! he gets it!
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Clave on December 12, 2004, 04:47:14 am: It was good.

As for two moons... It would be pretty wild, some places in the world already have huge tides, if they doubled in size, then things would get really borked up. It all depends on the orbits though, if they stayed opposite each other all the time, then I'm guessing the tides would stay the same, but happen twice as often....
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: pyro-manic on December 12, 2004, 12:03:57 pm: Who or what the hell is Zim?

Two moons would be.... odd. Things would be rather different.
Title: What if Earth had two moons?
Post by: Clave on December 12, 2004, 04:00:33 pm: Zim is a cartoon.

http://www.nick.com/all_nick/tv_supersites/zim/