• Question: if an astriode hit the moon what effect would it have on the earth? :)

    Asked by hannahclifford to Arlene, Colin, David, Eugene, Paul on 16 Nov 2012.
    • Photo: Colin Johnston

      Colin Johnston answered on 16 Nov 2012:


      In the billions of years the Earth and Moon have been together, possibly trillions of asteroids have hit the Moon leaving craters and as far as we know there has been no adverse effect on the Earth.

      Occasionally a big impact will throw debris right off the Moon’s surface and into space. Very rarely fragments of this debris will fall on Earth to be found. About 1 in 1000 meteorites originally came from the Moon so they are very rare. We are lucky to have one of these lunar meteorites in our collection at Armagh Planetarium.

    • Photo: David McKeown

      David McKeown answered on 21 Nov 2012:


      The moon effects the tides on earth. The gravitational force pulls the water around on the earth (with help from the sun and the earth’s rotation) If the moon exploded then the oceans would move in a different way.

      Also the werewolfs would know when to come out.

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