h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I recently came upon an article describing the amount energy needed to destroy a mass the size of the moon, unfortunatly, i think it would be hard to find a poweroutlet that supports that kind of voltage.
So i was just wondering if anybody out there had any bright ideas how this could be accomplished easier and cheaper, or perhaps more expensive in a more violent way.

The most energy efficient way to destroy the moon is just to wait for it to fall back to earth - you see, friction is very gradually slowing down its orbit which brings it closer to earth until the orbit is no longer sustainable and it crashes. Of course, this will take a very long time indeed - many moons, perhaps? .

Or you could focus a very large amount of sunlight on it and evaporate it...maybe.

Is it actually getting closer? - I seem to remember reading that it was slowly getting further away - somthing to do with tidal forces in the earth and moon, and the conservation of angular momentum.
I couldn't say for *sure*, but I remember being surprised to read whatever it was I read, so it must have been somewhat unexpected.

As to how to destroy the moon, I suppose it rather depends how small you want the pieces to be. Presumably one way would be to try and divert some asteroid onto a collision course. The moon itself is rather large, so you would need a pretty big asteroid, and the chances are that some the leftovers from the fireball would probably orbit the earth and slowly coalesce back into a smaller moon (over a few million years?), just like when the moon itself was formed from fragments of the earth's crust after a seriously heavy impact around 4 billion years ago.

I always heard it was moving farther. Billions of years it was really close and the gravity from it caused the seas to churn which helped life forms to be created in the ocean. As for blowing it up, hmm.
Just a guess, cuz I know little: but maybe you could find the time it is farthest from earth and closest to the sun. Then try to use rockets, and Koo Koo Roo chicken to push it into the suns gravity. Then let it smash into the sun and get barbecued.

The moon is getting further from the earth by about an inch a year. This is due to tidal friction. When the moon eventually gets too far away, the earth will become unstable and will spin out of control causing crazy weather patterns. Some scientists have talked about "stealing" another moon and placing it in orbit around the Earth to replace our moon. But hey, we have a few million years to work it all out before we need to worry. As for destroying it, why would you want to, it is the only thing regulating the rotation of the Earth. Without it the Earth would be a very different place, possibly unable to support life. Life, don't talk to me about life!!

big baby, so all of earth's creatures are killed off, just think about how cool the moon exploding would be. I see movie potential in the short time before we die from unstable weather conditions.

I want to see the movie, better make it soon!!

guttenberg's people are coming in tommorow and I hope to have lancelot the chimp and S. Epatha Merkerson signed on as co-stars by tommorow.

That is all a load of total bull!
The only way for the moon to go further away would be for it to move faster, the reason the moon orbits the earth is because it is in constant free fall, the slower the speed the closer to the earth, because it can travel less distance, the farther away, the faster, the greater the distance... Jeez! I'm only in grade 10 and I knew that... Anyway, my point is that... er... ::thinks:: Oh yea, and if the moon did somehow fling itself away from the earth, the Earth would not become unstable. The tides would change dramatically, as only the sun would be controlling them, there would be no spring or neep tides, but the earth would go on... and as for destroying the moon, I have an easy recipe:
1. Gain access to 2 nuclear bombs and 2 space shuttles
2. Hire Bruce Willis and a crew of surly drill rigers and stick them on the space shuttles
3. Find some reason for something to go wrong and have Brucey save the day by blowing up the nukes with the manual control. (since when do nukes have a manual control?)
4. Have the non-hero get the girl, and let Brucey fade into legend.
The End
(hey, that'd make a pretty crappy movie, eh? Oh wait... it did...)

Sorry to deflate your tenth grade knowledge but I am in 9th grade and just studied this. The moon is moving farther away just very slowly. Also the earth would become unstable because its the moons gravitational pull that has partly helped to keep the earth's rotation at a steady (i think its this many degrees) 45 degree angle. Without the moon the earth's axis would twist all about in different directions leading to very odd weather. Also the sun does affect the tides but not as much as the moon despite its greater gravitational pull. It's all about relative distance in that case because the sun is so far away the distance from one side of the earth to the other isn't that substantial so one sided isn't pulled much more than the other. That means smaller tides. Whereas the moon isn't so far away so the difference from one side of the earth to the other is more substantial. So the gravitational pull of the moon on the ocean floor on one side of the earth is pulling more than on the ocean on that same side. Making the water rise. Well my teacher was better at descibing it but trust me, I am backed up by a recent discovery channel show about how the moon has affected the earth.
So it's not B.S.

Dude!
I never said the sun has greater pull!
I said ::less::
Ugh...
And there wouldn't be spring or neep tides. They are caused by the moon and sun working against or with each other.
And here's a little food for thought:
The earth is slowing down at an astounding rate
They estimate that around the beginning of the age of dinosaurs the day was only 18 hours long...

Hi,

Since this discussion looks like it could get a little heated, I thought some research might be a good idea. My sources are: The Planets by Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest(p53), and The Practical Astronomer by Colin A Ronan(p90).

Strictly speaking of course, Moon doesn't orbit Earth, but both orbit around a common centre of gravity. However, the point is always beneath Earth's surface, so you have to be pretty pedantic not to use the common term, so I will.

Moon's orbit around Earth is not a circle but an ellipse, with an average distance of 384,000Km and a variance of plus or minus 25,000Km; so you see the distance to Moon varies all the time.

In terms of _average_ distance, Moon is in fact moving away from us, due to tidal forces, taking the necessary energy from Earth and so not violating the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Scientists know this, because they can measure the distance to Moon by bouncing a laser beam off a mirror left on Moon by one of the Apollo missions and have achieved a high degree of accuracy (measured in cm).

As well as causing tides, Moon has affected Earth by stripping away a lot of the atmosphere and hence reducing the air pressure. As to wether this makes/has made life possible/impossible; I recall an interview Douglas Adams did for The South Bank Show in 1991, where he likens us to puddle waking up and saying: "Hey this world fits me so well that it might have been _made_ for me."

According to Couper/Henbest, eventually the orbit of Moon will match the day length on Earth at about 1320 hours. (Imagine not having to get up for work until 330 O'clock )

As for destroying Moon, the simplest way would be to slow down its orbital velocity, which would make it collide with Earth. That would keep the wabbits away fwom your lettuce.

I hadn't heard about the moon being responsible for thinning the Earth's atmosphere. My gut reaction would be that any gravitational effects would be pretty insignificant when it comes to altering the movement of high-velocity gas molecules, but I'm quite prepared to be contradicted. What's the physical explanation
(Of course, the planetary-scale collision event that *created* the moon essentially annihilated the Earth's atmosphere, but that was a long time ago.)

I still feel cheated that the moon didn't vanish in a nuclear accident as predicted in Space 1999. We were lied to.

Chris

Hi,

Does the word OOPS mean anything to you?

It just goes to show that you should be careful extending from research. The idea that Moon has stripped atmosphere from Earth I put in, because I remembered it from a book called Extraterrestrial Civilisations by Isaac Asimov.

Now you've made me go back to it, I find I've garbled the section on the Kinetic Theory of Gases, which explains the atmospheres of Moon (technically known as bugger all) and Earth (ie very little hydrogen, helium etc.).

My only excuse is that I read the book 20 years ago.

Sorry.

i know you didn't say that I was just trying to paint an image of the effects.

* has a rather condescending smile on his face, like a Father looking upon a child who has fallen on it's face again - trying a few faultering first steps *

Honestly, if you really desperately need to get rid of a moon, the simpliest way is to just create a small black-hole in the vicinity...

...and you won't have any neighbourhood disputes anymore...

* thinks to self - ...or indeed any neighbourhood. *

- I think I'll go and have a little lie down now...

I've just got back from the local galatic planning division and I wouldn't worry too much about how to but when.

It appears to be scheduled for destruction by a Vogon Constructor fleet in 18 days time. ~sigh~

Not unless an Earth Delegation can travel the required light years and lodge a formal complaint - in triplicate...

...not looking so smug right now NASA.

Still, It's a little bit insensitive of you Mr.Drawer to profiteer by opening up a souvenir stand for all the galactic stickbeaks...

- How was I to know Noah was phrone to seasickness ...?

When did I open a souvenir stall? Now that is an idea