how could the impact that created the moon have hastened the formation of life on earth?
79281
It is thought that an object the size of Mars impacted with earth and created the debris that colesced into the moon.  I'm not sure that this impact is thought to have brought life to Earth, but other impacts from comets and meterorites that contain complex proteins or simple microbes could be the answer.  try reading "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson for more detail.
802553
The real answer is that we would almost certainly not have evolved without the moon; experts give these main reasons \n\nThe stability of the earth's rotational axis---it always remains nearly 23 degrees---is due partly to the Moon's presence; without it, the Earth's axis would wobble much more violently, so that seasons would be far more severe. [This wobble would occur over thousands to hundreds of thousands of years, but that might have been enough to affect evolution dramatically.] We could even from time to time orbit on our backs like the planet Uranus!\n\nThe length of the day might have been much shorter.\n\nThere would be greatly reduced ocean tides or tidal reaches so that the development of much of marine life, and certainly the development of Amphibian and the settlement of Dry Land, would have been greatly affected, perhaps prevented.\n\nAs for the present, our civilization might find it hard to adapt to a sudden withdrawal of the Moon, but could learn to cope with a slow drifting away---which is in fact occurring at a rate of about 3 cm/year. \n\n\nThat is the "short" answer, but if you want more information, this website explains in detail, but in easy terms how the moon and earth interact and so you can conclude further for yourself what the planet would be like without it.\n\nhttp://www.astronomytoday.com/astronomy/earthmoon.html
216980
No. The Moon rocks that the astronauts brought back and are in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, where millions of people have seen them, tell the story. They are glazed on the top side, just a little. \n\nDirect sunlight on the Moon is hot, but not hot enough to melt rock. (it gets to around 320 degrees F.) To cause rocks to glaze like pottery in a kiln, you would need about 1100 degrees F. So we see evidence of Lunar warming.\n\nNo process on Earth can affect the temperature on the Moon. But the Sun, which warms both the Moon and Earth, is unstable. We know the Sun is 4% variable, but we have only had the instruments to study the Sun for about the past fifty years. Maybe it gets more variable sometimes. \n\nTen or twenty thousand years ago-- we can't be sure-- the Sun flared up. It was very brief, or the rocks on the Moon would have become molten and flowed. It had to have lasted less than 24 hours (one rotation of the Earth) or nothing would have survived. I think the American continents were in sunlight at the time. \n\nSo it got hot enough on the Moon to cause the rocks to start to glaze over, but not hot enough long enough to melt them all the way through.\n\nOn Earth, the oceans boiled. There were hurricanes of live steam. A lot of species died, and there were only a few survivors like Noah.\n\nWhen the flare died out, there was all that excess water vapor in the atmosphere. It had to precipitate somewhere, and the first place was at the colest points on the planet, which were still the poles. \n\nYou see, you can't have an ice age, you can't have polar ice caps, you can't have glaciers, without water vapor in the atmosphere. The water tied up in ice was thousands of times more than the Sun would evaporate under normal circumstances. \n\nNow, the icepacks are finally melting back to the size they used to be before the flare. The planet is reaching thermal equilibrium once more. \n\nThere is evidence of other ice ages before that. They may have been caused by comets hitting the earth (in an ocean.) They would have impact energies equivalent to thousands of megatons of TNT, and would similarly put massive amouns of warter vapor into the atmosphere, with the same results.\n\nWhy don't you hear people talking about this? Because there's nothng that we could do about it. It sells more ad time on radio and tv to say that we did it to ourselves with polution. The ice will melt and the oceans will rise about 50 to 100 feet, and the coastal cities will all disappear, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. So the best bet is to move the cities inland and figure out where the new harbors and beaches will be.\n\nYes, we should pollute less, but here's something else to consider. Remember Mount Saint Helens? Biggest volcanic eruption in America in the last few hundred years. But volcanic eruptions happen a few times a century around the world, and that one wasn't especially big by global standards. \n\nNational Geographic did an article on it; you can look it up. They had a beautiful two page photo spread. The pictures one week after the eruption looked like the surface of the Moon. It was all cold grey ashes, dead tree trunks sticking out, and little craters (ponds). The other picture was one year later. It had the exact same tree trunks and ponds (the same spot) but now everything was green and growing. \n\nThe heat of the volcanic ash burned away dead leaves and underbush that kept the sunlight from reaching the forest floor, while the ashes are very good fertilizer. The heat also caused long-buried seeds to germinate.\n\nHere's the point: that one eruption put more dirt, gas, dust and radioactive particles into the atmosphere than everything we've done since day one. And the planet survived. The planet does this to itself REPEATEDLY and survives. \n\nEven the Trinity site, the site of the first atom bomb test, has things living there now, and the radiation level is barely abo
879542
Ok, this is kind of a long answer, but bear with me.  First off, the night would be no darker than it currently is during a new moon.  Remember, the moon is only up at night half of the time.\n\nHowever, the consequences of Earth having no moon would be much more severe.  Life as we know it would probably die out.\n\nOur moon is actually fairly large compared to our planet...this is what causes the strong tides people experience living on the ocean.  This tidal force also causes a much more subtle effect known as "precession".\n\nEarth's seasons are entirely determined by it's "axial tilt", the amount that our axis of rotation is tipped to the axis of our orbit (it has absolutely nothing to do with Earth being closer or further form the Sun).  During summer in the northern hemisphere, that hemisphere is tipped towards the Sun, while the southern hemisphere is tipped away from the Sun...that's why it's winter there.\n\nNow, throughout its history, Earth has had a relatively steady 23.5 degree tilt, meaning that the seasons have always been roughly the same intensity.  As mentioned, the moon's tidal forces causes precession, meaning the rotation axis carves out a wobble 23.5 degrees in radius every 26,000 years.  It's kind of like a top spinning...not only does it spin quickly, but as it also slowly wobbles from the Earth gravity.  The direction of the rotation axis changes, but the magnitude of the angle doesn't change.\n\nSo, the moon has a steadying effect on our axial tilt...so what?  Well, without it, our axial tilt could vary a lot, being caused by changing tidal forces from Jupiter and the Sun.  There's good evidence to show that this is exactly what happened to Mars...it has no large moons, just a couple tiny captured asteroids which exert very little tidal force.   As a result, it seems that Mars has varied anywhere from 0 degrees axial tilt (no seasons) up to a 60 degree axial tilt (crazy intense seasons) caused by the tidal forces of the Sun and Jupiter.\n\nWith an axial tilt of 60 degrees, that means all locations northward of 30 degrees get 24 hours of sunshine in summer, and absolutely no sunshine in winter.  With such strong seasons, it's likely the oceans would evaporate off...this seems to be the case on Mars, where there is mounting evidence that there was once a large northern ocean that mysteriously disappeared.\n\nSo, Short Answer: The seasons will become incredibly intense, the oceans would evaporate off, and without liquid water, all life would die.
443155
First off, the rotation around it's axis speeds up. \nThe faster the speed, the more "rugby like" a sphere apears . \nThe moon would be orbiting it in a more eleptical orbit\nIts own orbit perhaps would be altered and become more eliptical. A more eliptical orbit results in us getting out of the "life zone" thus ending life on the planet throughout the course of several years... \n\nhmm... HOWEVER, if it was a Vertical Rugby ball then its the total opposite, for it would be rotating around the two pointy sides rather than the flat ones.  Interesting, I'm going to start making models !
486667
The rotation of Venus is believed to have been caused by a huge planetary impact that occurred very very early in the formation of the planet.  A similar event is thought to have happened to Earth and it lead the the formation of the Moon.  As for life previously existing on Mars, I think it is possible.  However it was probably only microscopic bacteria-like organisms.  We will never now until humans do some on-site digging in the Martian crust.
333564
If you look at the history of life on earth, there are several steps where things seem to be difficult. Life starting at all seems to have been relavtively easy. The earth cooled down enough by 3.8 billion years ago to have liquid water. By 3.5 billion years ago, there was bacterial life. So *at most* 300 million years was needed for this transformation.\n\nThe next bigstep was the transition from bacterial (call procaryotic) to cellular life with nuclei (eucaryotic life). This happened about 2 billion years ago and so took about 1.5 billion years to accomplish. At this time, cells also started producing oxygen, which lead to a massive die-off.\n\nAfter this, multi-cellular life appeared about 570 million years ago, so another 1.5 billion years after eucaryotic life. \n\nGiven the length of time needed for these transitions on earth, it appears that going from bacterial life to multi-cellular life was very difficult. After multi-cellularity was achieved, it only took about 570 million years to produce humans and technological life.\n\nSo my guess is that bacterial life is very common in the universe, but multi-cellular life is probably rather rare. There are other considerations about how long a technological civilization would last, but that is another issue.
49445
The best theory that I've heard is that there was originally another moon around Mars, or a sister planet to it. This moon (or planet) collided with Earth and shattered, thus creating the asteroid belt. This theory has been attached to the theory of a single original continent, with the collision breaking apart the single land mass into multiple continents. It also is used to explain the tilt on the Earth's axis, and some Bible scholars believe it triggered the flood (of Noah).
638389
you mean affect? \n\nI dont think the gravitational pull does much more, but I know plants and animals ( mostly underwater) use moonlight to do their photosynthesis, so the moon is not useless
78893
all the answers yet provided were all quite valid.\nhere's something else for y'all to consider though... and that is the amount of debris that our atmosphere shields us from.  you see, upon entering the atmosphere as high speeds, it creates friction, which begets heat, and that burns up the particle in question.\n\nso.. like.. uh..  the moon has no atmosphere.  that means any habitation is going to bear the full brunt of such debris...  it's not very pleasant at breakfast to have a meteor smash through your roof, especially when that roof was keeping all your oxygen inside......
646581
Undoubtedly our moon has been impacted by asteroids and other objects that otherwise would have struck Earth. If the moon wasn't there, then it follows that we might be struck more frequently.
394918
That doesn't answer anything.  Whenever we talk of God or Aliens creating life on earth, we have to ask "Where did God or the aliens come from?".\n\nRequiring bigger smarter beings for creation of life leads into infinite regress.\n\nEvolution neatly solves the problem by showing how more complex beings can come from simpler beings with an input of energy.
150705
The earth has evolved geologically, chemically, and biologically.  Geologically:  When the earth formed, it was basically a molten mass.  It cooled, and settled into layers, with the densest layers in the center, and the least dense in the crust.  The atmosphere of the early earth was basically methane, ammonia, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and water vapor.  The hydrogen escaped, the carbon of the carbon dioxide bonded with rock.I don't recall what happened to the rest.  But, when life began, it was life that found oxygen a poison.  However, when photosynthetic organisms appeared, they actually produced oxygen as a waste product.  Some forms of life evolved to be able to use the oxygen to permit them to more efficiently extract the energy from organic compounds.  As far as life itself is concerned, the first organisms, according to the current model, were extremophiles - they were one celled organisms living in extreme environments, such as the volcanic vents on the ocean floor.  Life gradually evolved from simple unicellular to more complex unicellular to multicellular.  Geologically, when the earth was new, there was very little land.  As a result of volcanic activity, grantic crust formed, which underlies the continents.  The continents, or rather the crustal plates on which they "float" have been moving since they formed due to convection currents within the earth's mantle.  So, the layout of the land forms has been changing, and with them, the ocean currents.  This has resulted in a gradual and constant change in climate.
1150339
It'd depend more on what forced the moon out of it's typical orbit.  If something slowed the moon then the moon would gradually fall to earth be a relatively smooth landing  probably destroying a lot of disruption where it lands and over most of the planet not to mention throwing off the equal libream of our axis causing the to rotate and wobble in random patterns until balanced again.  If it was forced very quickly it could shatter the planet, the planet would most likely pull back together but you could kiss all life goodbye, except very resilient bacteria. Refer to Mimas a moon that orbits around Saturn, also referred to as the death star moon.  Hope I helped
651257
The immediate effect would be no tides and no large area of high atmospheric pressure toward the moon.  The long-term effect would be the end of life on Earth.  The moon holds the earth's tilt to a small range of precession.  A wobble of only 0.5 degrees created the Sahara desert 6,000 years ago.  Planets with no large moon wobble by 30 degrees or more.  It would cause a climate shifting catastrophe.  Imagine if Texas  received 6 months of sunlight like the north pole.
738089
Just as the moon can cause tides in the Earth's oceans due to gravity, the Earth can also cause tidal effects on the moon.  Over time, these effects have caused the moon to become "tidally locked".  This has the effect of causing the moon's rotation period to equal its revolution period.  You can see this effect by having someone walk around you but looking directly at you.  While they are facing you, the actual direction of their face changes as they move around you.\n\nHowever, the moon's orbit is not perfectly circular.  It is a slight ellipse so, sometimes, its rotation can get a little ahead or behind of its orbital position.  Also the orbit is tilted with respect to the Earth's equator.  These combine to allow us to see about 55 -60 % of the moon's surface during the orbit although, of course, we can only see half at any given time.
1081528
Two factors at least determine the spin rate of the Earth. The orbital distance from the Sun where the solid material condensed to form the Earth's body had a fundamental orbital velocity around the sun. As these materials coalesced into the Earth, they had to maintain the energy of their momentum during accretion. This resulted in the basic rotational speed of the solid Earth. Second, the Moon has an effect on the Earth. Since the Earth is about 80 times heavier than the moon, most of this effect is upon the Moon, which now turns at a rotational speed which places the heaviest side always facing the earth. On Earth the moon provides a slight attraction which is most easily seen in tides. This gravitational force is slowing the rotation of the Earth slightly. A possible 3rd factor is if the moon is the result of an impact of a large object on the Earth which caused ejected material to coalesce into the Moon. Such a large impact would effect the rotational speed of the Earth. Or the Moon may be a sister condensation that formed at the same time as the Earth and spun off into its current orbit. This would carry off material and momentum and set the Earth spinning as well.\nIn any case, momentum must be preserved. The final result is the current rotational speeds of both the moon and the Earth.