When we gaze into the night sky, the moon has the most significant presence on us. There are many questions you may ask when you see the moon. One question may be, what if the moon was bigger? What effects would it have on us on earth? We take a look at all this and conclude if any of the scenarios are possible.
A bigger moon will have much less effect on us than a smaller moon would. A bigger moon would make earth harder to tilt, giving us much more stable weather on earth. It would also mean that it would be harder to have ice ages.
Earth’s gravitational pull affects the moon, and the moon’s gravitational pull affects us on earth; we are a system. What would happen to this system with a bigger moon? We take a look at some more effects on earth. If a bigger moon may stabilize our weather, it will dramatically affect somethings, even devastating in others.
What would happen to the tides of the moon was bigger?
The gravitational pull from the moon is what causes our sea tides on earth. We have already covered how the moon affects our tides. However, how would our waves be affected if the moon was bigger than it currently?
Suppose the moon was 20 times bigger than its current size for this question. The tides on earth would be 20 times bigger than they are currently are at high tide.
At first, this may not sound too bad, but the bigger tides would cause global floods. The giant tides would sweep around the globe every two to four hours cause mass destruction to anything in its path. Ocean life would also be dramatically affected by the giant waves. The seas would have a much different echo system than it is currently.
Gravitational force if the moon was bigger
The moon currently has a gravitational force that affects our seas and can cause significant earthquakes. Even at a distance, it lies presently in our skies, which may surprise some.
However, if the moon were ten times the size it currently is, it would have a gravitational pull 200 times stronger than it has presently on earth. A 200x gravitational pull on anything and the earth is no different.
There would be large earthquakes with the gravitational force level on earth, and volcanos would become active as the tectonic activity would be significantly increased, which would lead to the volcanos becoming active and earthquakes.
What if the moon was closer?
The moon is 238,855 miles away from the earth; this is around 30 earth’s away from us. If the moon were bigger, it would naturally come closer to earth.
The moon is currently a big part of our night sky without looking at it with a moon telescope. However, if it were bigger and closer to us when looking into the night sky, it would take most of our night sky.
Why does the moon appear bigger?
We covered this thoroughly in another blog post; why does the moon appear bigger?
As some may after reading, it’s nothing to worry about what effects a bigger moon would have on our earth.
It is just an illusion caused by our eyes, and in fact, the moon is no closer to earth. The moon illusion makes many people believe the moon is closer, but it not, and we can stop worrying about it coming closer.
Conclusion
Some of the effects of a bigger moon may sound scary, but there is little to worry about in reality. The moon has been orbiting us and moving away from us at approximately 1.5inch every year since the big bang.
So there is little chance of any of the worst cases scenarios happening. But with anything astronomy, it’s been studied and pondered upon by many people.
The moon has fascinated us humans for millions of years. I don’t see this stopping any time soon with telescope becoming more popular and space expeditions back on governments agender. I can only see moon discoveries becoming more frequent with many more lunar surface feature finds.
