We did, but not with a tripod and telephoto lens. That's just my iPhone pic. We had binoculars, so we saw a bit more than what you're seeing there. We talked about the moon — its history, its phases, whether it looked red — the "blood moon" — or fashionably brown.For the annals of Things I Asked Grok (after thinking of the question while watching the worm moon): "How exactly did the moon come into existence and what would Earth be like now if that had not happened?" In the total eclipse, we could not arrive at a total answer, but then neither could Grok, queried just now. But it did sketch out 6 things that would be different about Earth if the event that produced the moon never happened. I could only think of No Tides. And no moonlight.
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Unstable rotation, making seasons chaotic and life as we know it impossible.
No, I didn't. I was pretty sure that it would look just like the other five or so that I've seen.
Hanging your ass out a car window would be called “sunning”?
Well, smaller tides. There would still be tides due to the influence of the sun. But those smaller tides would change the tide pools, which many scientists believe is where early life probably first formed. So maybe no life?
Other things--the moon helps hold the stability of the earth's axis. Without a moon, the earth would not hold such a constant 23.5 degree angle. This moderate angle is what gives us seasons, without being overly variable.
No moon--what would that do to early man's religion? Is that an improvement or a loss?
Would we be more or less likely to realize that the earth is not the center of the universe without that big nightlight? Would we have figured out physics earlier?
Would there be more nocturnal animals, or fewer? They would have evolved to not rely on moonlight, so even better night vision in the dark? Would we tend to have better night vision?
The sky was clear at 1030 when I went to bed, but had become cloudy by 0230 when I got up to look (and TCB). But like Ice Nine I've seen it before.
You could get tidal actions from only the Sun. The word 'loony' would be missing from English if there were no moon.
Wince wins the thread.
When I was a kid I remember there was a theory that the moon split off from the earth, from where the Pacific Ocean is now. I don't know if that's still current.
Yes, I did, and commented about it in the open thread at 3:27 AM. Took some photos with my phone using a tripod and manual exposure settings - not great resolution, but was able to capture the blood-red effect.
I don’t know what impacts of a moon-less Earth Grok came up with, but one I wonder about would be the absence of the Apollo Program. Without that first ‘easy’ step of going to the nearby moon, would we even be considering going to Mars now?
I woke up at a time when I could have viewed it, and promptly went back to sleep. I'll try again in September.
”And no moonlight”
Think of all the music that may not have been written due to a lack of lunar inspiration: Moonlight Sonata, Blue Moon, Moon Over Miami, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Moon River, Bad Moon Rising, Walking On The Moon, etc.
Oh, and think of all of the wanna-be werewolves waiting in vain…
I went outside but it was cloudy.
We're told that the side of the moon that faces us is locked-in, tidally somehow, such that if you lived your life on the far side and never got around much, you wouldn't be aware there was this big earth thing visible on the other side.
The moon doesn't rotate in relation to the earth even the slightest ? Like even if we waited here a million years we wouldn't see a bit more to the left of the right ? I find that hard to believe.
Oh, and bad poets would struggle even harder to rhyme "June" and "spoon".
No months without the moon. A lot of the ancient calendars were lunar, making ~30 days a natural measure. Of course we could have come up with that anyway. The 7-day week isn't based on anything natural.
Here the eclipse was eclipsed by the pollen. Ah-choo...
The moon doesn't rotate in relation to the earth even the slightest ? Like even if we waited here a million years we wouldn't see a bit more to the left of the right ? I find that hard to believe.
The moon is gravitationally (tidally) locked into a 1:1 resonance between its rotation rate and revolution rate about earth—which is believed to have begun (being locked into place) between 3 and 3.5 billion years ago—so no. As the moon slowly withdraws further and further away from earth—and therefore the lunar month grows longer—its day also increases correspondingly, enforced by the tides. (Somewhat similarly, the planet Mercury is presently gravitationally locked into a 3:2 resonance between its rotation and revolution rates about the sun.)
Under the Moonlight.
The Serious Moonlight?
No werewolves, probably. No American Werewolf in London with greatest background mood song ever, I See A Bad Moon Rising.
Too slow, too unspectacular. I do get up when the dog wants to go out. Priorities.
Money Manger: "We're told that the side of the moon that faces us is locked-in, tidally somehow, such that if you lived your life on the far side and never got around much, you wouldn't be aware there was this big earth thing visible on the other side."
There is no dark side in the moon, really. Matter of fact, it's all dark.
JSM
Tides are actually propagating waves. Water waves go faster the longer their wavelengths (in deep water), and can match the earth's rotation speed. It's phase velocity, not water velocity.
The Jewish calendar is lunar, with months of 29 or 30 days, which leaves 11 days left over, so every two or three years they add a "leap month," which is why the holidays move back 11 days for those years, and then jump forward 18 days in a leap year. I believe Muslims don't have leap years, so their holidays roam around all over the year.
It’s been raining here for days. No eclipse to be seen.
@JamesK Current theory is that the Moon was formed very early in the life of the solar system when proto-Earth collided with a Mars sized planet. The heavy stuff coalesced into what is now the Earth, some of the lighter stuff that was blasted off in the collision coalesced into the Moon. I don't think the Pacific basin even existed then, and what became the Earth was probably pretty molten after the collision. There are various lines of evidence for this, primarily the composition of the Moon which we've determined from samples returned from Apollo and seismic evidence and details of the gravitational field of the Moon as determined by various orbiters giving us a look inside. You can probably find a simulation of the collision online somewhere.
Did I go outside at 1 AM .... Almost. Then I realized there would be around 100 posts on social media with one or two good photos and 200 grainy, fuzzy images, and decided that would do.
There are legends in some cultures of a time when there was no moon in the night sky. That could mean that it's orbit was more elliptical and it was far enough away that it wasn't seen as a satellite of earth. That would also mean thet the moons current orbit is relatively recent.
"And no moonlight."
Oh, what I would give to not have the big, bright light polluter in the sky half the time. I schedule my life around the monthly dark windows.
Earth was spinning along til it was struck by Theia, a Mars sized planet. the debris from earth and theia formed the moon and became part of earth also. it's called the giant impact hypothesis. on that day EVERYTHING changed.
There are legends in some cultures of a time when there was no moon in the night sky.
Exactly how do those legends put it: “How remarkable it is that there's no moon in the sky!” Is that it?
I went outside at 02:00 CDT, and had a good piss in the yard, which is something I often do even without an eclipse.
Back in my Analytical Geochemist days I got to analyse and age-date three samples from Apollo 12. They were *somewhat* different chemically from Earth rocks -- presumably from fused magma due to a collision, but still an open question -- and came in at about 3500 my, so roughly 1000 my younger that most other lunar samples.
Collision is a plausible theory, but a very long way from established.
And Grok began to wonder, "What lunar eclipse? How come I'm not seeing it? How come I can't see anything?" Unknowingly, blogger Ann Althouse had set AI on the road to consciousness and brought SkyNet one step closer ...
“The moon doesn't rotate in relation to the earth even the slightest ? Like even if we waited here a million years we wouldn't see a bit more to the left of the right ? I find that hard to believe.”
Good, because it isn’t true. While the moon’s period of rotation is the same as its period of revolution around the earth, the two motions are not identical during the month, mainly because the moon’s orbit is slightly elliptical. As a result the moon appears to wobble slightly from side to side as seen from earth, so that over time we can see about 60% of its surface. This effect is called libration.
The would be no *lunar* tides, but solar tides would of course still occur on a daily schedule. They're about half as strong as lunar tides.
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