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The Moon: Earth's great shield?

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posted on May, 15 2004 @ 02:04 AM
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I've never bothered to seek out any real scientific thought about this, but to me it seems that the Moon is very cratered...without it we'd be that much more cratered, therefore our lives are dependent upon the Moon for absorbing a LOT of damage for us.

I'm wondering if any other scientists have ever really put forth this as another factor that adds to the RARITY of life on Earth.

I'm also wondering if it is even a real factor.

So it boils down to what are the people's (you guys) thoughts about this!?



posted on May, 15 2004 @ 02:13 AM
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The Moon does sheild us from some stuff. But it just looks so cratered because it has no atmoshpere, which means that it cant stop asteroids from hitting it. and its got much lower gravity so the imprints of the asteroids stay longer. the Earth on the other hand has atmoshpere which kills off most asteroids. and there are craters on Earth, but sense most of it is water, most of the craters are in the Oceans.



posted on May, 15 2004 @ 02:42 AM
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I like NASA's neo-simualted orbits, it really shows how the gravity of the the moon and earth together warp their path. Does anyone know how bing of an asteroid it takes to get through our Earths atmosphere?



posted on May, 15 2004 @ 02:57 AM
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Look I know why it is so cratered. But Tyco, 50 million years old, would be about as bad of an impact as that which killed the dinosaurs. And that's relatively small, it's just the most recent of the larger craters.

My point is merely that all those craters are formed by meteorites that other wise would have hit the earth, some would have disintigrated in the atmosphere, some would have blown-up causing devestation over an area. Others would have struck the earth some causing mass extinctions. So forth and so on.


and its got much lower gravity so the imprints of the asteroids stay longer.


No that has nothing to do with the crater's "life span".

Well anyways...so far so good, more comments


jrod I don't know how big it needs to be originally to survive earth's atmosphere...but plenty of ones that are the size of the one that killed the Dinosaurs have hit the moon so that's a start.



posted on May, 15 2004 @ 08:46 AM
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Originally posted by jrod
I like NASA's neo-simualted orbits, it really shows how the gravity of the the moon and earth together warp their path. Does anyone know how bing of an asteroid it takes to get through our Earths atmosphere?


www.lerc.nasa.gov...

Here is a great online program to check impacts.. www.lpl.arizona.edu...



posted on May, 15 2004 @ 08:57 AM
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I would say that the amount of physical protection the moon gives the Earth is minimal. When you look at the orbit and distance of the moon around the Earth, you can see that it shields only a small surface area of our planet for a limited amount of time.

The impacts that the moon has taken from meteors are no greater than those that have hit the Earth in the past. It also doesn't mean that just because the moon has impact craters that those meteors were on their way to hit the Earth. Only those on the far side of the moon would have had a likely chance of hitting us.



posted on May, 15 2004 @ 09:03 AM
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Originally posted by FreeMason
I've never bothered to seek out any real scientific thought about this, but to me it seems that the Moon is very cratered...without it we'd be that much more cratered, therefore our lives are dependent upon the Moon for absorbing a LOT of damage for us.

I'm wondering if any other scientists have ever really put forth this as another factor that adds to the RARITY of life on Earth.

I'm also wondering if it is even a real factor.

So it boils down to what are the people's (you guys) thoughts about this!?


Our greatest shield is Jupiter I think.



posted on May, 16 2004 @ 08:01 PM
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Originally posted by Cardu
Our greatest shield is Jupiter I think.


I agree 100%... I was searching about the possibility of life in the univers for another thread and came across this article. Here is an article to support that theory. www.space.com...



posted on May, 17 2004 @ 08:33 PM
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One of the resons why the moon is more cratered is because the only thing that covers up crater marks on the moon is....... more craters. Here on earth we have erotion, tectonic plates..... you get the picture.




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