Why I love the moon, and why you should love it too.
I agree with the assessment of astronomers that a large sub-planetary object collided with the earth very early in its life, thus increasing the mass of the earth and also throwing off enough material to accrete into our moon.
This unique event happened in a good window of time, at the right place in our solar system where the planet earth was coalescing, with a diversity of elements, both heavy and light (rather than too much of one or the other). As the moon was formed, it was significant enough of a mass to pull at our earth. In fact, it still pulls on us today, manifesting most visibly in the tides.
But back then, then earth was still somewhat amorphous and still hot as hell so much that it was in a semi-liquid state of magma. In this state, parts of it could be pulled upward, cracking the crust at certain points and causing deformations in our cooling planet.
These would first form the first proto-mountains on earth, and would make the surface of the earth highly heterogenous. Likely, without the moon, the surface of the earth would not have such great variation as it does today. Surely, craters would provide some, but that would be sporadic, and possibly too destructive to our surface to allow any safe pools of water where life could develop. (Hence the pockparked surface of the backside of the moon).
Through the ages, the moon has continued to provide heterogenity to our planet.
Most importantly, it drives the tides which cycles water and moves it along the surface of the continents washing things ashore, and also taking them from the shore. It creates different zones on the beach which allow different niches to develop. It casts light on the night surface on different intervals, generating different conditions on different nights.
All these differences give opportunities for evolution to make use of them. Every difference in the environment is doorway for life to evolve.
So, the moon has been very important to the development of complex and diverse life on earth.
Without the moon, we probably would merely have simple organisms on earth, or at the most, life would evolve much more slowly because there would be so little impetus to evolve and adapt (or again, the lack of a moon would probably allow the surface of the earth to be pulverized so much that life would have ample time to develop at all)
This unique event happened in a good window of time, at the right place in our solar system where the planet earth was coalescing, with a diversity of elements, both heavy and light (rather than too much of one or the other). As the moon was formed, it was significant enough of a mass to pull at our earth. In fact, it still pulls on us today, manifesting most visibly in the tides.
But back then, then earth was still somewhat amorphous and still hot as hell so much that it was in a semi-liquid state of magma. In this state, parts of it could be pulled upward, cracking the crust at certain points and causing deformations in our cooling planet.
These would first form the first proto-mountains on earth, and would make the surface of the earth highly heterogenous. Likely, without the moon, the surface of the earth would not have such great variation as it does today. Surely, craters would provide some, but that would be sporadic, and possibly too destructive to our surface to allow any safe pools of water where life could develop. (Hence the pockparked surface of the backside of the moon).
Through the ages, the moon has continued to provide heterogenity to our planet.
Most importantly, it drives the tides which cycles water and moves it along the surface of the continents washing things ashore, and also taking them from the shore. It creates different zones on the beach which allow different niches to develop. It casts light on the night surface on different intervals, generating different conditions on different nights.
All these differences give opportunities for evolution to make use of them. Every difference in the environment is doorway for life to evolve.
So, the moon has been very important to the development of complex and diverse life on earth.
Without the moon, we probably would merely have simple organisms on earth, or at the most, life would evolve much more slowly because there would be so little impetus to evolve and adapt (or again, the lack of a moon would probably allow the surface of the earth to be pulverized so much that life would have ample time to develop at all)