What would happen on earth if the moon disappeared?

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Speaker 1: Hey, Daniel, what's your favorite thing about looking at the night Scott? You know, I should probably say something inspirational about physics, etcetera. But honestly, being a family man, my favorite thing is that it means my kids are probably asleep. That's what the night sky means to you, that they're safely touch dead exactly? Or do you mean actually asleep? It's time for the adult portion of the day. That sounds that's sounds kind of racing, trust me, in my evening is not that exciting. But do you mean like they're in bed or they're just sleep or what makes it calm? Well, they're in bed and they're quiet. That's all I really care about. Honestly, whether they're asleep or not is their business now. But seriously, let's say, like you're leaving the night Skuy, what does it make you think of as a physicist, as an explorer, as a as a thinker. You know, it makes me think about vastness, the hugeeness of space, of course, you know, but also like the vastness of time. I mean, you can see time in the sky, know what. I love that when you look at the sky it's basically the same sky the people have been looking at and wondering about. For as long as people have been looking and wondering, you know, it hasn't changed that much. I have a question for you, what if it wasn't? What if our night sky changed? We Well, that'd be amazing. But as long as my kids stay in bed and stay quiet, I'd be cool with it. Hi am or Hammet cartoonists and the creator of PhD comics. Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, a parent, and someone who likes to look up at the night sky and enjoy the quiet, vastness of space. And something we also share in comming is that we're are the co authors of the book We Have No Idea, a guide to the Unknown Universe. So if you are wondering about it, we don't know what physicists I have no idea about in our great, big universe. Please check out that book. It's a lot of fun and it features a lot of Jorges hilarious cartoons, so check it out. It's what neither a physicist nor a cartoonist knows about the universe. It also features a lot of Daniel's hilarious physics, so if you're into both hilarities, please check it up. But today, welcome to our podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of I Heart Radio. That's right, our podcast in which we think about all the things that are surrounding us, all the things up in the sky and down here on Earth, and try to explain them to you in a way that makes you laugh and hopefully illuminates your understanding of the world around us. Yeah, and we also think about the big what if questions in the universe, or if we can't use what if because it's copyrighted by Random Monroe of XKCB, we also tackle the what would happen is of the universe. We consider ourselves sort of breeding ground for the next generation of disaster movies by Michael Bay. You've done the Huge Shark, You've done the Crazy Storm. What's next, the big Asteroid? That's right, he's done that already, So we are just generating ideas for the next summer blockbuster. I think it's something a lot of people maybe wonder about out there. You know, what could be the next huge thing that could happen in this crazy, chaotic universe that might affect my life? And you don't have to speculate. I know the people out there wonder because they write to us about it. We get emails people asking us. For example, we did an episode recently about what would happen if the Sun became a black hole? That's an honest question that a bunch of people wrote in. People wonder about these things. It's on people's minds. You know, things around us seems stable, but what if something happened? And so this might be another one in our series of what would happen if and so to be on the podcast, we are going to be answering the question what would happen if the Earth lost its moon? Goodbye, mone, goodnight Moon. That's right, although these days, you know you have to say not to say good night to the moon. You have to say good night to the moon. And it's first colonizers by the Chinese. What do you mean there are living things on the moon now because of us? Yes? Uh. The Israeli's crash landed a probe on the moon, and on that probe we're tarte grades, little water bears, and so now we are just awaiting our lunar overlords, the coming of the Tartar Grade civilization. Oh my god, what a disaster, you know, I know, So be careful with your science, folks, you may accidentally seed a new civilization which destroys ours. Oh my good and Tarti grades are super scary. Oh they're so cute. We're gonna do an episode about Tartar grades in the next few weeks, so tune in for that one. But to think about it, as we talked about tonight, Remember the Moon is no longer a lifeless rock. It is now home to about a hundred little targegrades. Do you think they deserve their own country? I think Donald Trump will probably try to buy it. Yeah, Hey, if I can buy Greenland, why can't I buy the Moon. They'll flash a signed they'll make a formation on the surface of the Moon saying we are not for We're not for sale exactly. But it's an interesting question. You know, the moon is a big fixture in our lives, in our skies, in mythology, in romance. So what would happen sort to the human psyche and to life on Earth if the Earth lost its moons. It's a totally reasonable question. And you're saying this was a listener question as well. Somebody some people wrote this in yeah. Absolutely. People wrote this in and and wanted to know, And as soon as I read it, I thought that's a good question. I wonder how life would change on the on the surface of the Earth if we lost our moon. So I had to do some research. It was a lot of fun actually, so thank you folks for reading in this questions in aside, Daniel, I think that's the title of our third book, what would happen? What would happen? If? What would happen if a physicist and a cartoonists got paid to make three books? It would never happen. But I just wanted to get a review of our book from one of the hard grades on the moon. It's a life goal for me. So that's what we will be talking about today, is the question what would happen if the Earth lost its moon? Like if it suddenly disappeared, Daniel, or if it, you know, got knocked off and flew off or what do you think they were thinking when they asked the question. I don't know. I read a book recently by Neil Stevenson. It's a great book. It's called Seven Eaves, in which is the moon is demolished and all the rubble rains down on Earth. That's pretty bad scenario. So it might be that people are reading that book and wondering about it. Um or you know, just if the moon was like flung out in the space and got hit by an aster and deflected. And there's lots of different scenarios, but we'll dig into all of them. Wasn't that also a plot point in Avengers in Finny War, like Thanos reaches out and he grabs a moon and he brings it down on the Avengers. I do watch these movies, but they're like seventeen hours long, so I don't remember every plot point. But that's a pretty interesting question. And I imagine people think a lot of things would happen, or maybe nothing would happen. Yeah. So, actually, before I didn't research, before I even had an idea of my own, I went out and I asked folks what they thought would happen if the Earth lost its moon? And where were you in the world when you ask these questions, or even on the way you were as I was crash landing on the Moon when I asked these questions. No, um, here these questions were answered in some combination of Heathrow Airport and random cities in Portugal. Cool. So think about it for a second. What do you think would happen if the Earth lost its moon? Here's what people had to say. We wouldn't have moonlight. Well, I guess the tides would be out of balance and we should have floods coming. Yeah, because the whole stability of the whole system will fail, and then the Earth will lose the momentum and the oceans will I don't know what, but it's not possible to life on Earth without the moon. Life on Earth could theoretically survive. It is possible we could survive without a moon. However, climates would be much more unstable. I think it wouldn't be too bad for life on Earth except for those title creatures. Does the moon impact our seasonal change? No, I don't think so, although at nighttime it does make the evening flowers blue. All right, it seems like only bad things would happen. That's what people guessed. But he said, like, great, I hate the moon, Good riddance. Yeah, that's true. The moon has a good good Um, it's pretty favorable. I guess. I wonder if people ever do surveys like rate the favorability or unfavorability of astronomical objects. What's the most popular place to vote for this candidate or for the moon? Who would you want to be as your president? But what do you think is the most popular astronomical object? But if you ask people like which object and this guy would you delete if you had to delete one? Because which is the least popular aspect of object? Least popular? It's like those surveys online like what's your most popular movie that you love or the most popular movie that you hate? Yeah? Which all so writing folks, and let us know which astronomical object do you love to hate? Pluto? Probably poor Pluto? Um, but yeah, people people mostly said negative things would happen, right, nobody would be happy if the moon went away. And there's a big spectrum of possible outcomes here, Like the person who said we wouldn't have moonlight, like that's a disaster. You always like the technical answers, the trivial technical answers, Right, Well, if we didn't have a moon, we wouldn't have a moonlight. Technically true, yes, but do you think he meant that more like romantically? That like romance would be affected on Earth if there was no moonlight. It probably would be. Yeah, they'd probably be a different cycle of of conception and birth if there wasn't a moonlight icon um. But yeah, that's a great question. We'll be talking about what would happen physically, right, not necessarily biologically or romantically, but kind of like, how would the physics of our everyday life change if the Moon suddenly disappeared? Well, Daniel, let's step through it first. First of all, could it happen, Like, could our moon just disappear or move away or float away? There are lots of ways that we could lose our moon, right, um. Number one, if something hits the Moon, you know, really big asteroid or something. The Moon is an orbit around the Earth, but that's a little bit delicate, right. It's stable, but if it gets knocked out of orbit, it's pretty tough to get back into orbit. So yeah, you could get deflected. You mean, like an orbit is a very delicate thing, right, Like it's something that you could easily fly away or crashing into the planet if you disturb the orbit. Yeah, exactly, of all the possible trajectories around the planet, there's a very tiny fraction them that are a stable orbit, right, And so you change your trajectory, and you know, pretty sure soon you're sling shotting around the planet and then off into space or something. But you know, the Moon is hit all the time, that's why it's covered in craters. Usually it's just hit by a little rock and it doesn't change its motion significantly. But there are bigger rocks out there, and if one of them hit the Moon, then it could get deflected into outer space. Sure, how big do you think it would of a rock would it take to knock the Moon out of orbit? I haven't done any calculations, but you know, I think it has to be pretty substantial. You know, you're talking something like, you know, hundreds of meters wide are really a really pretty big solid rock. And we're sort of I heard also we're kind of losing the Moon anyways, Like the Moon doesn't want to be around really, it's sort of edging slowly for another planet in a way out of the party. They're like, all right, you guys are kind of crazy. I am gonna slowly move over to Mars because yeah, there's a good party going on on Venus. So see you later. Text you. Um, No, we're losing the Moon. It's not actually in a totally stable orbit. It's getting further away every year, but just by a tiny amount, just by a few centimeters. I looked it up. It's about four centimeters per year. And that's just the way it is. It's it's like in an orbit that is not stable. It's not in an orbit that self corrects or stays in its lane the whole time. It's like in a spiral outward away from the Earth. That's right. And you have to remember that the Earth and the Moon are a system, right. They're both orbiting the center of mass of the Earth of the Moon. Like imagine if the Moon and the Earth at the same mass, then their center of mass would be between them, literally, and they would both be moving around that point. But they're not the same mass. The Earth is much much heavier than the Moon, and so the center of mass of the two is closer to the center of the Earth. So but the two are really orbiting this point that's a slightly offset from the center of the Earth. And they're both spinning. So it's a big complicated system and energy is moving from one part of it to another, and so the Moon's rotation gets further out right. Um, But that all so means it gets more angular momentum. So the angle momentum has to come from somewhere. So as the Moon get drifts away, the Earth actually slows down a little bit. I mean the days get longer. Yeah, it's complicated, it's complicated, and so this you know, this whole system is not entirely stable, but it's a little bit stable. It actually turns out it's more stable. You get fewer fluctuations. We'll talk about it more in depth later, but it plays a big role in keeping the Earth in a sort of a stable rotation and and spin. I have been feeling like that are my days are are getting longer? You know, I just don't have the same energy I had before when I was younger. I don't know why you need more bananas. Most people feel like as they get older, the days just fly by. So that's one way the Moon could disappear. It could literally get knocked off course and fly away, or it is sort of slowly moving away. What are some other ways of the moon we could lose the moon? Well, the most catastrophic would be if it got hit by a rock and it didn't get deflected into space, but it got like broken up the Moon and is is you know, not as like strong as the Earth is size well held together. It's more of a pile of rubble than the Earth is because it doesn't have like inner magma and all that stuff, and so it could get broken up. And that's exactly what happens in that novel we were talking about earlier, seven Eves. Neil Stevenson does like fantastic research for his novels. I've never found a physics mistake in any of them, and I read them very carefully. And in that people at first were like, wow, cool, Look the Moon is exploding and there's all these shooting stars. But then quickly they realized, oh, this is just a bunch of rocks raining down on the Earth, and that's not good. The Moon turned into shooting stars and all that rained down on the Earth, it would heat of the atmosphere and a lot of those pieces would land, and you know, it's like getting hit by a by a planet killer. Would it necessarily crash into Earth? Like wouldn't like if the Moon cracked into two, wouldn't necessarily crash down? Or would the two houses keep going around the same orbit. It depends a lot on how the cracking happens. If you like exactly cracking in place, then yeah, they could keep orbiting just sort of cracked. But if it's a big collision, then some of it's going to get blown out into space, and some of it's gonna turn into a ring around the Earth because some of it will find a stable orbit, but a lot of it will just fall into the gravity well of Earth and land on Earth and kill a bunch of people. So not a happy scenario. So don't shoot the moon. Don't shoot the moon. That's right. Then shoot for the moon or add the moon. Unless you're playing hard, you're welcome to shoot the moon, but if you are in possession of a moon busting rocket, please do not shoot the moon. Alright, So it could maybe happen, And so let's dig into what would happen if the Moon disappeared, either by some physical process or just in our imaginations, if somebody snapped their finger and their moon just disappeared. What would happen to us here on Earth? But first let's take a quick break, all right, Daniel, we're talking about what would happened of the moon disappeared, and from a physics point of view, what would happen to the Earth if the Moon suddenly flew away or suddenly, um, I don't know, collapse, if the masters of the simulation just deleted it somehow. Yeah. Well, one of the most immediate things the effects of the Moon on life on Earth, of course, is it's gravity. Right. The Moon is a big ball of stuff and it has gravity, and that gravity pulls on the Earth, and it's a lot of people probably know that Moon causes tides on the Earth because it's pulling on the water that's on the Earth, and it's literally lifting it up a little bit off the surface, like sucking up the water up right. Yeah, exactly. Remember how gravity works, It depends on the distance, right, So the closer you are to the Moon, the stronger the force of the Moon on you, and so on the close side of the Earth, right, things are getting pulled harder than on the far side of the Earth. What happens is that every object ends up becoming sort of not spherical, but look more like an ellipse al, right, where the stuff that's on the closer side gets pulled up, you know, to be closer, and the stuff that's on the farther side isn't getting pulled as hard, and so it stretches out sort of long ways that way, so the Earth, instead of being a sphere, becomes a little obloid, both closer to the Moon and away from the Moon. That's where tides. That's where tides come from. Right, it's not it's not the because the moon is going around the Earth or both both things are. And the reason the tides change is because the Moon is going around the Earth and the tides follow it. Right, And uh, you know the reason it's the water is just because water is easier to move than rock. Right. It does also slightly squeeze the Earth and change the shape of the Earth, but that's a much smaller effect than just changing the levels of the ocean, because obviously water is much easier to squeeze than rock. I always wonder what sort of actually happening when the tides go up and down, you know, like it's it's the moon pulling on the water and so the water becomes less dense or you know what I mean, Like how does it go up? It's more about where the water is on Earth. Right, the you have you have the huge ocean, and all the oceans are basically connected and sea level is not a constant all the way around the Earth. Right, Sea level is not the same distance from the center of the Earth everywhere around the Earth. Because of the tides. Some of the water is getting gathered together into a bigger, deeper pile on some places, and it's getting slurped up from other places. So you get less water in the oceans on the sides and more water in the oceans on the moon side and on the opposite side. It's like it's recruiting water to where the Moon is. Yeah, exactly, Like say you took all the water and you put it in the Pacific Ocean, all the water from all the other oceans, and put it in the Pacific Ocean. Obviously that ocean would be deeper and the other ones would be shallower. It's basically that on a much smaller scale. So it's not a density thing, no, like there's less gravity or more. Yeah, but the water it's kind of cool, like the Moon is lifting the water, right, it's like gathering the water together into a pile. Um. That's it's a real size, you know. It sort of blows my mind. The moon is big enough, given how far away it is to actually like make piles of stuff on Earth just due to its gravity. Yeah, that's true. I mean it's a little circle in the sky and yet it's pulling a bunch of water into space. Yeah, it's a it's a big effect. And you know, people, um, some biologists give tides a big role in the development of life. Yeah, because one theory goes that, you know, in the sort of primordial soup rehabl these organic materials float around in oceans, that the tidal regions are the best place for life to start because the water is sort of mixing a lot, right, you get the tides coming in and out, and you're getting a lot of waves and splashing, and you get like periods, Yeah, a lot of churn exactly. And so I mean I think it's just speculation. I think people think that tides play a role in the development of life. You know, we can't go back and do the other experiment like delete the moon, run the Earth simulation and see if life takes long reach developed. But it's a cool idea, right, I mean, like life wouldn't just develop in a lake or a pond. Yeah, they sort of you need that sort of like motion to get things going. And also they noticed that these brackish ecosystems where you mix fresh and salt water and those get mixed due to tides, those that have the most diversity. And so I think that's another argument that the origin of life on Earth was affected by tides. All right, So if we didn't have the Moon, we wouldn't have ties, not quite. That's the fascinating thing is that you delete the Moon, tides are not gone. They're just smaller. And the reason is that we also have tides because of the Sun. What, Yeah, the Sun. It makes perfect sense, right. The Sun is much further away but much much huger than the Moon, and it also pulls on the Earth, obviously, and so it pulls stuff closer to it more strongly and stuff on the opposite side less strongly, and so it does the same thing to the Earth's oceans that the Moon does, but of course in a slightly different angle. Right, So you have the tides on Earth are complicated because you've got the little tides from the Sun and you've got the big tides from the Moon. And you know, that's why the tides sometimes are smaller than others. Wow, I had no idea, and we thought about it before it's I guess, you know, I guess the sun. It seems so far away and so little in the sky, but it's really swinging the earth around like a slingshot, and so some of them must affect the water on the surface. Absolutely does. So we would still have tides without the moon. We just wouldn't have as strong a tide, and the tides will be more regular because we have this complicated two body effects where you have two different things with two different periods, sometimes adding up to each other, sometimes contradicting each other. Right, so we have more complicated tides and larger tides because we have the moon and the sun. So we would have smaller tides or like half as much or like a tent. What do you think. I think it's about a quarter. Yeah, I think the moon is the majority of the tides, but the sun is a is a non negligible effect. So maybe we wouldn't miss it in that way, or maybe life could have still developed without the moon. Yeah, probably probably. And the moon and the tides have a lot of effect on the atmosphere as well, right, not just the water, but it affects the tides and and the just the gravitational pull of the Moon. It squeezes the atmosphere and affects things like global currents and uh, and so you get a lot more mixing just in general in the atmosphere because you have the Moon. And so people speculate that if you didn't have the Moon, not only would you not have tides, you have different patterns of global currents and you have stronger regional weather patterns because it wouldn't be as much sort of global mixing and evening out of stuff, all right, so it would affect the tides, but maybe not completely. And what else would happen if the moon disappeared, Well, obviously we wouldn't have eclipses, right, Like you know, without the moon, you can't get the Moon's shadow on the Earth either kind of eclipse, like a lunar eclipse. That's true, you need the moon for both. And you might scoff at that, but you know, eclipses are they're they're kind of amazing events. I had the opportunity to be in the full eclipse region for the last one, and I was shocked at how how sort of deeply spiritual event it was for me, somebody who's not really very spiritual at all. And I think that eclipses in history have also inspired a lot of thinkers and and astronomers, early astronomers, and so I think, um, without having eclipses, we would have a bit of a different culture. Do you think it would have affected our scientific development? You know, like with having the moon there, God is thinking about planets and orbits and you know, bodies and mass and motion, right, because didn't Newton sort of used the moon in his thinking about gravity. Absolutely, I think it's vital because there's this incredible step in human history and physics that that Newton accomplished, connecting motion of stuff on Earth to motion of stuff in the sky, right, to say, maybe the same rules that apply here on Earth also apply to stuff in the sky. And that's a much easier leap to make if you can see stuff in the sky that seems concrete, right, The stars and all that stuff, they're just tiny dots. You have no idea that they're really things, or they're just lights up in some some ceiling. But the moon looks like a thing, right, it looks like a big rock. It's immediate, it's there, And so I think it's very helpful for early thinkers to understand that the stuff out there in the sky was just more like the stuff here on earth. Maybe God's thinking that maybe this guy is not just a big canvas with pinpoints on them, right, Like, maybe there are there are things out there and we and we can understand them, right, they follow the rules that we can figure out. That's an incredible moment in the history of like human intellectual thought, right, that we could understand the cosmos all right, So no eclipses smaller tides. What else would happen if we said good night, Yeah, well we would have darker nights. Right. The moon is basically a big mirror for the sun, and so when the sun is on the other side of the planet, the moon provides a little bit of reflection of the Sun's light. And so you know, we've all been out on a on the night when you have a full moon and it's much easier to see. And there's a lot of animals that rely on the moon. But it affects some animals in a good way and some in a bad way. Right. Yeah. For example, some animals like owls, right, they hunt at night, right, and they use the moonlight. They have very powerful eyes. But they need some light, and so owls have to hunt by only starlight, then you know they're not going to find as many rats. And so conversely, getting rid of the moon would be good for rats because they've mostly come out at night to find their food and their main predator is owls, and so if it's darker than it's easier to scurry along and you know, find that pizza on the on the New York subway or whatever. So if you are a pro rat, this would be a good thing. If your pro owls. You make that sound like pro rat is impossible, I am pro rat, because no I am. You may not be aware, but we actually have rats as pets at home. Yeah, yeah, I think I remember. So rats are very sweet, very purpose We got them on purpose. Yes, um, they're very sweet, very intelligent, very loving, very smart little creatures. Actually, all right, so you're in the pro And also because while the moon played some role in, you know, helping us think about the cosmos, it's actually kind of annoying from an astronomical point of view because you can ruin a nice dark night, which is you couldn't You can't see the stars very well. Yeah, like I've gone camping sometimes, and one of my favorite things by camping, he's getting to look up at the night sky and seeing a really dark night, because it's incredible how many stars are out there, right, And most people who live in big cities, they have no idea how many stars are visible in the night sky. But when you go out in the middle of nowhere and you're far from everything and you can finally see the Milky Way in all of its beautiful glory. But then there's the moon and all you can see is the moon and nothing else, you know, watching it exactly, and so us for romantic physicists, it's beautiful. No, you're right. I was just a cat thing the other day, and you know, I remember looking up and seeing the milk away and it was amazing, and my kids were super impressed. I hadn't thought about it back then, but you're right. I think it was a moonless night, and if the moon happened out, we we wouldn't have seen these things. All right. Let's get into what else would happen if we lost the moon, And this one is a little bit more serious. I have to say it would actually affect you on a daily basis. But first let's take a quick break, all right. We're talking about what would happen if the moon disappeared, and we've talked about smaller tides, no eclipses, which would be a bummer for poets and um ancient civilizations perhaps, and darker nights. But there is sort of a serious consequence to having no moon, right, yeah, exactly. This is a bit of speculation based on modeling people have done, But it seems like having a moon plays a big role in the Earth's rotation and in its tilt. Right, So the Earth spins around once a day, but it's also tilted off of its axis, right, which is why we have seasons. Like sometimes you're tilted a little bit closer to the sun, sometimes you tilt a little further from the Sun. And so the Earth's rotation controls the length of the day, and it's tilt controls the the magnitude of our seasons. And as we were talking about before, the Earth and the moon are part of a complicated system of anglar momentum, and and it seems like having a moon makes the Earth's situation a little bit more stable. Like planets without a moon, it's easier for their tilt to change, like we could the way we're spinning around in place, not just around the Sun, could change, like we could tilt more towards the Sun or away from this. Yeah, exactly. We're more susceptible, for example, being struck by rocks or this kind of stuff. And the only way we could absorb the angular momentum of some like impact or something would be by the Earth changing its tilt or changing its rotation speed. But if you have a moon, you have a more complicated system that can absorb it in other ways. And so you know, if it's some big buffer, it's like a gravitational buffer. Yeah exactly, it's like a gravitational buffer, and you can dump some of that stuff into the moon, like well, make the moon spin faster or make the Moon go around a little faster or whatever, and so without affecting that. Yeah, And so it seems like having a moon makes the whole system a little bit more stable for the Earth. So you know, we could end up like if we lost our moon, we could end up in a situation where we have no tilt, right, which means we have like no seasons, right, because the tilt is what gives you seasons, right, yeah, exactly. The tilt of the Earth relative to the Sun means sometimes the people in the north are closer to the Sun, and sometimes means they're further away from the Sun. Right, Yeah, So if we lost our moon, we'd lose a bit of our gravitational angle momentum buffer, and we'd be more susceptible to some of these big changes, which could have like obviously huge effects on the climate and survivability of the Earth, well beyond whether rats can get gobbled up by owls or whether or not Jorge can see the Milky Way on his camping trip. There will be no seasons, or there could be crazy extreme seasons, which and maybe that those kinds of things wouldn't support light, right, it would be Um, it would be a big deal. Yeah, all right, Daniel, So, um, those are all pretty cool. Um, but I'm a little bit worried now should I be worried? Is the moon going to be going away anytime soon? All these things are fun to think about, you know, interesting to sort of probe the physics of the situation, But none of these things are very likely to happen. Right, We've been watching the skies for a long time. We're pretty sure that there are no big rocks headed for us that are likely to obliterate the Moon. It would be pretty surprising if that happened. As long as we are friendly to the programmers who run the stimulation and they don't just decide to delete the Moon from our existence, then I think we can on having the Moon for you know, a lot longer. In fact, I was thinking it would be kind of a best case scenario. Actually, if like an asteroid hits the Moon and knocks it out of orbit, that's like a good thing because it means that then it hit hit up exactly exactly. We sort of use up our buffer on that one asteroid and we'd be totally vulnerable to the next one. Be like those movies where the bullet it is headed is headed towards you, but then somebody runs in and inters, that's right exactly, and you lose that person, but at least you didn't get shot the target. Greats are like, we'll save you, that's right. So maybe thanks to the Israelis for founding the lunar colony. Cool. But I'd imagine also that even if we lost the Moon through whatever reason, it doesn't sound like immediate death for us. You know, it would mean changes in patterns and tides and seasons, but maybe not immediate like we're dead in the war. Yeah, it would not be immediate death. We have some time to adjust and you know, even if the earth seasons get more dramatic, we'll figure it out. You know. Think about the careful, considered way that we're dealing with climate change right now. Doesn't that give you confidence that we'll be able to handle something like that? Sarcasm, sarcasm, sarcasm, that's what a sarcastic physicistm There you go. No, but this is definitely solidly in the fun to think about but not actually worry about category. All right, Well, so if you're a rat lover you can rest at ease. Then all those rats out there are no, wait, you should be worried. You don't need to worry about. Sorry. If you're a rat lover, then uh, I'm sorry. We can can't get me any time. You know what, rats are going to survive longer than we are, I think. All right, thanks for tuning in, and thank you for sending these fascinating questions. If you have a question about a crazy hypothetical situation, you'd like us to work out in details, send it to us at questions at Daniel and Jorge dot com. So in the meantime, go out there and look at the moon and appreciate its beauty or its absence if you want to be at the stars. And that's right and the Milky Way. Moons are something you never appreciate until you lose them. I hope you enjoyed it, See you next time. If you still have a question after listening to all these explanations, please drop us a line. We'd love to hear from you. You can find us at Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Daniel and Jorge that's one word, or email us at Feedback at Daniel and Jorge dot com. Thanks for listening and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcast from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Yeah