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Introduction
Basically, if it disappeared today it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference to us. The tides would only be a third as large as they are today (the sun would still create a tide just it would be smaller). But, where it gets interesting is when you consider what would have happened if the moon never existed. It would have had a few main effects I have gleamed through research: Firstly, if the moon had never existed the earth would be spinning much faster than it currently does. This is due to the fact that the moon's gravity. This faster rotation speed would have meant that the wind would blow much quicker (I have heard it quoted that wind speeds of 100mph would be normal). This means that evolution would have happened completely differently (as tall trees wouldn't exist and this would greatly limit 'tall' animals). (It is also argued this slowing friction helps keep the Earth at such a pleasant temperature for life) Secondly, with a much smaller tide it is more unlikely that life would have evolved on land as, a large tidal range gives a good like starting point for sea life to slowly move out of the water. So without the large tidal range the moon provides it is less likely life would have evolved on land. But, even further back than that, a large tidal range (far larger than today as, the moon used to be much closer to the Earth as, the moon has to move away as the Earth's rotation slows to conserve angular momentum) most likely helped life to begin. This is because it helped the chemicals vital for life to reach the ocean (as the only other way by rivers is extremely slow compared to massive tides) which would have allowed life to start to evolve. Thirdly, the moon has a settling effect on the Earth's axis. It stops the axis of rotation of the Earth rotating wildly about like Mar's axis does for example. This means that the Earth has much more stable climatic conditions (regions don't change temperature year on year for example). This may have again provided the key to life through the stable conditions and slow changes that allow organisms to evolve as the conditions change
Tides
Perhaps the most obvious manifestation of the influence of the Moon on the Earth are the ocean tides, particularly the spring tides where the gravitational pull of the Sun and Moon combine to give the greatest effect. The regular rise and fall of sea level creates an unique environment in the Solar System, where life is exposed to both immersion in water and exposure to air in the space of a few hours. This interface between two distinct ecological niches is thought by many to be crucial in evolutionary terms. This is an environment in which organisms can experience the stresses and strains of an alien world before safely returning to their aquatic habitat, such changes possibly promoting the alteration and/or migration of organisms from one environment to the other. Hence the presence of the Moon to cause tides may well have sparked the spread of organisms from the sea to the land. The Moon also raises tides in the solid body of the Earth and in the past, when the Moon orbited much closer to the Earth than at present, these tides are estimated to have produced displacements in the Earth's solid surface of up to a kilometre. This would have produced intense stress and deformation within the Earth which, coupled with the decaying heat of accretion and the higher content of radioactive (U, Th and K) elements, would have greatly promoted melting of the early Earth. This melting may well have had an important role in the early differentiation of the Earth, in particular producing the
earliest evolved crust, which would then be available for recycling by nascent plate tectonic processes.
Metals
Perhaps one of the least obvious but most significant contributions from the Moon to life on Earth has been the gift of workable metal deposits at the surface of the planet. Ever since the first samples of lunar rock were returned by the Apollo astronauts and the geochemical data were made available, scientists have been intrigued by the relatively high abundance of siderophile and chalcophile metals in the silicate Earth compared with the Moon. Current theory suggests that if the Earth had once been entirely molten then these metals should have been locked up in the Earth's metallic core as the Earth cooled. The current abundance of these elements in the Earth's mantle should be much
lower, similar to those of the Moon (part of which was derived from the Earth's original mantle).
Computer modelling of the collision between the Earth and the Mars-sized impactor shows that the bulk of the mantle of the impacting object and a proportion of the Earth's silicate mantle were ejected into Earth orbit and coalesced to form the Moon. However, the metallic core of the impactor was not ejected into orbit but instead fell into the main body of the Earth. This impacting core material, in some models, is the 'wedding ring' of metals deposited into the Earth's silicate mantle after collision and subsequently recycled into workable ore deposits by plate tectonic processes over geological time. Without this gift of metals, the so called 'late veneer', it is very unlikely that a technological civilization could have developed on the Earth.
allows us to see and understand the true extent of our star but also allowed the first observational confirmation of Albert Einstein's theories, which transformed our understanding of the Universe. The conclusion reached is that the Moon, itself born in a unique and random event, has been essential for the emergence of intelligent life on Earth and as a result such intelligence is probably a very rare occurrence itself.