Things could be different enough that life doesn't evolve at all, or it isn't as complex. It depends on how much the tides affected the development of life.
Like, what if hypothetically a key intermediary stage between land dwelling animals (of any kind, vertebrate and invertebrate) are tidal influenced areas like tidal mud flats or tide pools? No moon means those areas don't exist, so life might be stuck in the seas. But over all, we just cannot say for sure. Not with a sample size of one planet.
Stephen Baxter wrote a book called Manifold: Origins. Third book of a trilogy, nowhere near as great as the two previous ones (Manifold: Space, and Time). But a lady does jerk off a caveman.
Part of the idea is what other paths human evolution could have gone, where we came from, and one of the characters is from an earth where the moon never formed, the planet spins so fast there are constant hurricane force winds, anything that lives is either in steep valleys or are just so low and tough they don't get blown away. Constant cloud cover and storms. No tides. Wind and water erosion would be really strong and surface features would be bare rock with sediment piling up in the cracks and washing out to the ocean.
The initial impact would have turned the crust molten.
And for the sake of argument, even if it did leave a big crater somewhere, a couple billion years of erosion and plate tectonics would make it hard to find.
It would explain why the moon seems to be made of pretty much the exact same stuff as the crust and mantle of earth, but is pretty poor in heavier metals with a relatively small iron core.
Also the body that would have impacted to create the moon would have been the size of mars, and the models that result in one big moon were glancing blows. So when you ask "where" it hit you're talking about something that smashes a hemisphere.
It's called theia becase people name things after things you dipstick, it's not like someone had to stand on the planetoid like 3 gorillion years ago to give it a name.
[...]
Not much probably, we'd all be a few centimeters shorter due to the increased force of gravity on a more massive earth, and the much smaller tides that would be driven solely by the sun would probably keep a lot of the cool aquatic life that adapted to survive out of water for brief periods from evolving.
The lack of a large moon would mean that the earth's axial tilt won't be as stable and tides would be much weaker.
> few centimeters shorter due to the increased force of gravity
It wouldn't be that big of an effect, adding the mass of the moon wouldn't increase the earth's mass by even 1%, and considering the low density of the moon relative to the earth the increase in volume (and thus radius) would mean that earth would more or less have the same surface gravity.
>a random planetoid just happened to crash into our planet and then the debris just happened to form a moon the exact correct size and distance necessary to appear exactly the same size as the sun from earth, allowing solar eclipses to happen, just by pure coincidence
And people say there's no proof of God
>the exact correct size and distance necessary to appear exactly the same size as the sun from earth, allowing solar eclipses to happen, just by pure coincidence
That's not always true THOUGH
>random planetoid just happened to crash into our planet
The early solar system, being a disk of debris, was no where near as stable as it is today. Collisions between large objects were the rule not the exception. >exact correct size and distance necessary to appear exactly the same size as the sun from earth
Except the moon and the sun aren't always the same angular size because the orbits of the moon around the earth and the earth around the sun are elliptical, this is why you get annular eclipses.
>the exact correct size and distance necessary to appear exactly the same size as the sun from earth, allowing solar eclipses to happen, just by pure coincidence
That's not always true THOUGH
what are the chances of that specific event still. Next to impossible
It's called theia becase people name things after things you dipstick, it's not like someone had to stand on the planetoid like 3 gorillion years ago to give it a name.
How different would life be if they had merged into one Super-Earth?
Not much probably, we'd all be a few centimeters shorter due to the increased force of gravity on a more massive earth, and the much smaller tides that would be driven solely by the sun would probably keep a lot of the cool aquatic life that adapted to survive out of water for brief periods from evolving.
You're forgetting that the moon also drastically slowed down the rotation of earth.
Without the moon the planet would be spinning so fast the surface would be constantly battered under hurricane force winds.
How would life have evolved differently if there was no moon?
Things could be different enough that life doesn't evolve at all, or it isn't as complex. It depends on how much the tides affected the development of life.
Like, what if hypothetically a key intermediary stage between land dwelling animals (of any kind, vertebrate and invertebrate) are tidal influenced areas like tidal mud flats or tide pools? No moon means those areas don't exist, so life might be stuck in the seas. But over all, we just cannot say for sure. Not with a sample size of one planet.
You still have tides without the moon. The sun has a say in it as well. Just look at the difference between a spring tide or a neap tide.
It would be nothing like the tides we know.
They would be exactly like them, just smaller and more regular.
Stephen Baxter wrote a book called Manifold: Origins. Third book of a trilogy, nowhere near as great as the two previous ones (Manifold: Space, and Time). But a lady does jerk off a caveman.
Part of the idea is what other paths human evolution could have gone, where we came from, and one of the characters is from an earth where the moon never formed, the planet spins so fast there are constant hurricane force winds, anything that lives is either in steep valleys or are just so low and tough they don't get blown away. Constant cloud cover and storms. No tides. Wind and water erosion would be really strong and surface features would be bare rock with sediment piling up in the cracks and washing out to the ocean.
Do we know where in the world Theia collided? Is there any sign or indication?
It happened many thousands of years ago in antediluvian times, anon. The flood destroyed all evidence.
The initial impact would have turned the crust molten.
And for the sake of argument, even if it did leave a big crater somewhere, a couple billion years of erosion and plate tectonics would make it hard to find.
It would explain why the moon seems to be made of pretty much the exact same stuff as the crust and mantle of earth, but is pretty poor in heavier metals with a relatively small iron core.
Also the body that would have impacted to create the moon would have been the size of mars, and the models that result in one big moon were glancing blows. So when you ask "where" it hit you're talking about something that smashes a hemisphere.
How different would life be if they had merged into one Super-Earth?
Assuming all else being equal, not much in all likelyhood. The moon is only ~1/80 the mass of the Earth
why are you fucking stupid?
The lack of a large moon would mean that the earth's axial tilt won't be as stable and tides would be much weaker.
> few centimeters shorter due to the increased force of gravity
It wouldn't be that big of an effect, adding the mass of the moon wouldn't increase the earth's mass by even 1%, and considering the low density of the moon relative to the earth the increase in volume (and thus radius) would mean that earth would more or less have the same surface gravity.
>a random planetoid just happened to crash into our planet and then the debris just happened to form a moon the exact correct size and distance necessary to appear exactly the same size as the sun from earth, allowing solar eclipses to happen, just by pure coincidence
And people say there's no proof of God
>the exact correct size and distance necessary to appear exactly the same size as the sun from earth, allowing solar eclipses to happen, just by pure coincidence
That's not always true THOUGH
>random planetoid just happened to crash into our planet
The early solar system, being a disk of debris, was no where near as stable as it is today. Collisions between large objects were the rule not the exception.
>exact correct size and distance necessary to appear exactly the same size as the sun from earth
Except the moon and the sun aren't always the same angular size because the orbits of the moon around the earth and the earth around the sun are elliptical, this is why you get annular eclipses.
what are the chances of that specific event still. Next to impossible
Relative to the quintillions of planets in the universe?
Not bad.
Anon the fact that (You) exist as (You) is a statistical improbability.
As my stat teacher was very fond of saying "the probability of any historical event is 1"
Were they also prone to saying water is wet?
How do we know the planet was called "Theia"?? Why do we call it the moon if it's really just a lil' Theia?? Huh? Why can't you answer THAT!?
The people in charge have contact with beings who can ascertain these facts
it was revealed to me in a dream.
Brainlet. It's called Theia because in greek mythology Theia was the mother of the Moon Goddess.
How convenient
It's called theia becase people name things after things you dipstick, it's not like someone had to stand on the planetoid like 3 gorillion years ago to give it a name.
Not much probably, we'd all be a few centimeters shorter due to the increased force of gravity on a more massive earth, and the much smaller tides that would be driven solely by the sun would probably keep a lot of the cool aquatic life that adapted to survive out of water for brief periods from evolving.
You're forgetting that the moon also drastically slowed down the rotation of earth.
Without the moon the planet would be spinning so fast the surface would be constantly battered under hurricane force winds.