Is there a ‘Supermoon’ in your future?

A “Supermoon” shone on Kingfisher County and probably the rest of the world recently.

The event occurred on Nov. 4. It happens when the moon comes nearest the Earth on its orbit and gives the appearance of being larger than normal.

They occur as full moons three or four times a year. One source says the next one will occur on Dec. 4. I especially miss the late Nadine Borelli of Kingfisher at times like this. A close observer of nature and science she would frequently provide clever reports for the newspaper when unusual events were imminent.

In an effort to fill in for Nadine (sort of) I went to Google to see what information it could provide about the supermoon. It indicates the moon is far more important than just providing nighttime light.

The publication, Science in School, comments:

Life Without the Moon: A Scientific Speculation
(Author: Erin Tranfield)

“Soaring temperatures, a flooded landscape, violent winds…. What would our planet be like without the Moon?

“The Moon, der Mond, la lune. Its name and even its gender vary from language to language but there is no question that it is key to our image of Earth. Can you imagine Earth without a moon? No beautiful, bright object traversing the night sky, hovering on the horizon, peeking through the trees on a cold winter’s night? No romantic moonlight, no Blue Moon, and no lunar landings. Not only would we miss it – without the Moon, we might not even exist. ...

“Let us imagine two scenarios: (i) if Earth had never had a moon and (ii) if our moon suddenly vanished. But first, let’s remind ourselves of the Moon’s effects on Earth.

“Time and Tides: the Moon’s Influence on Earth

“Earth did not always have a moon, so where did it come from? The leading scientific theory is that an object about the size of Mars, called Theia, collided with Earth about 4.5 billion years ago. striking at an oblique angle, it raised a cloud of debris that then coalesced to form the Moon. This had profound effects on Earth.

“Earth and its newly formed moon exerted a gravitational force on each other, slowing the rotation of Earth and lengthening the Earth day from five hours to 24 (Touma & Wisdom, 1998). In fact, to this day, the Moon continues to slow down the rotation of Earth, although only by 0.002 seconds per century.

“1) Earth rotates faster than the Moon orbits Earth, causing friction as the land rotates under the tidal bulge. The friction between land and the tidal bulge pulls the tidal bulge forward so that it is ahead of the line of attraction between Earth and the Moon.

“2) The friction force between Earth and the ocean acts as a brake. This force is called tidal braking and it ‘pulls’ Earth backwards in its orbit, effectively slowing the rotation of Earth. Tidal braking also affects the Moon through force, which ‘pulls’ the Moon forward in its orbit, effectively speeding up the rotation of the Moon. This is what causes the orbit of the Moon to slowly increase, causing it to slowly move further from Earth.

“The gravitational attraction between Earth and the Moon also stabilized the tilt of Earth’s axis, and it is today’s constant tilt of 23.5° that gives Earth its predictable, fairly constant climate and its seasons . Without the Moon, however, the axis would have continued to wobble… There are many graphs and pretty art connected to the article. You might want to look it up.

Those interested in learning more about it can find it by typing “moon” on their computer, which is what I did.

The article asks a couple of interesting questions:

“Scenario 1: What if we had never had a moon?

“What would have happened on Earth if, about 4.5 billion years ago, Theia had passed peacefully on its way without striking Earth and forming a moon? Well, life of some sort would probably exist on Earth, but humans almost certainly wouldn’t.

“Think of the very long course of evolution, the small changes, the minute adaptations that organisms make to their environment. It would only have taken small changes to Earth’s environment to have dramatically altered the course of evolution. I wouldn’t be writing this article – and you wouldn’t be reading it.

“And if the Moon had never formed, Earth would be a very, very different place. An Earth day would be only 8-10 hours long, with no moon to slow it down. The faster rotation would cause winds of 160-200 km to sweep Earth’s surface. The tilt axis of Earth would wobble, resulting in dramatic changes in temperature over thousands to millions of years. And although our seas would still be tidal, the tides would be much smaller – caused only by the Sun.

“You might like to ... to speculate about what kinds of life might have evolved on moonless Earth, capable of withstanding extreme temperatures, high winds, small tides and short days.

‘Scenario 2: What if our Moon suddenly vanished?

Jellyfish (Cnidaria) and many other groups of marine and freshwater zooplankton move up and down the water column according to a daily rhythm. If the Moon were to disappear, Earth days would become shorter and the animals would need to adapt to the shorter daily rhythm.

“Supposing the Moon just vanished tomorrow? We and all other organisms on Earth would be in serious trouble: we have evolved to live under a particular set of conditions and would then be faced with an entirely different environment. These changes would happen over the course of thousands to millions of years, which may sound like a long time, but the changes would be dramatic.

“Without the Moon, the stability of Earth’s axis would be lost again, and with it, our predictable temperatures. Let us consider two cities: Rome, Italy, and Stockholm, Sweden. In summer the average high temperature in Rome is 29 °C, and in the winter the average high temperature is 13°C. In Stockholm, the high in summer is 20 °C and in winter it is 0 °Cw1. If Earth’s tilt axis changed, the temperatures in these two cities would change dramatically. Imagine if the temperatures were swapped: the infrastructure (e.g. air conditioning or snow plows) would simply not be in place in those cities for humans to live, work and eat comfortably. The Italians, Swedes and all other life on Earth would need to adapt or face extinction.”

••• That’s some of what I didn’t know, and actually still don’t know, about the moon, but it’s interesting to think about.

Such articles cause me to realize the high intelligence of individuals thousands of years ago who started astrology scientific books or computer articles to read. – Ptolemy and Galileo come quickly to mind – who began and then fine-tuned – the study of such things and wrote essays about their investigations.

Ptoloemy didn’t have a telescope in his day and proposed that the Earth was the center of the universe.

Galileo Disagreed

It took Galileo, who improved the telescope in the 17th century, to figure out that Ptolemy, a Greek astronomer in Egypt who was born about the year 100, was wrong. Galileo reported the Earth actually circled the sun. Everybody didn’t believe him and reportedly he spent time in prison for refusing to recant his findings.

And to think we have to use a GPS to find our way around today.

Reportedly, there are clubs for people today who believe that the Earth is flat.

I’ve never been invited. It’s just as well. I’ve never been considered a “joiner.”