What would really happen if the Moon disappeared tonight? In this science-first thought experiment Earth keeps spinning and the tide still comes in, only smaller and at the same time every day. We separate myth from physics on tides, moonlight and nocturnal wildlife, eclipses, Earth's axial tilt and the length of the day, and Apollo's laser mirrors show the Moon drifting away by about 3.8 cm a year.

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▶ Watch the video, with every source and image credit: https://youtu.be/CWt2Qwkf3_E

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Chapters

0:00 Tonight, the Moon is gone

0:36 Can the Moon really disappear?

1:02 The Moon is leaving us

1:33 The tides would shrink, not vanish

2:09 Life that runs on the Moon

2:51 Darker nights

3:26 The last eclipse

3:59 Would Earth tip over?

4:54 The lengthening day

5:35 Does the Moon affect sleep?

6:00 Where the Moon came from

6:35 Just not tonight

The whole episode is a thought experiment (the narration says so at 0:47): the Moon is not going anywhere.

Sources

• NASA Moon fact sheet: https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html

• NASA JPL, Lunar Laser Ranging (3.8 cm a year): https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/apollo-11-experiment-continues-to-return-valuable-data/

• NOAA, what causes tides: https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_tides/tides02_cause.html

• Laskar et al. 1993, Nature (the Moon and Earth's tilt): https://www.nature.com/articles/361615a0

• Lissauer, Barnes & Chambers 2012, Icarus (a moonless Earth): http://barnesos.net/publications/papers/2012.01.Icarus.Barnes.Moonless.Earth.pdf

• Stephenson et al. 2016, Proc. R. Soc. A (length of day): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5247521/

Labels: in the video every claim carries an on-screen label (FACT, THEORY, ESTIMATE, HYPOTHESIS, SPECULATION); in this audio edition the narration says out loud when something is an estimate or a thought experiment.

Narration: synthetic voice. Music: original.

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