Well, it’s complicated.
What if we take a powerful nuclear weapon, and detonate it on the moon? Would huge chunks be blown off? Would the whole Moon be destroyed? Would the moon get pushed toward the Earth? Well, we don’t know, but we can make a pretty good guess.
This idea isn’t as crazy as it sounds. In 1958, America was seriously considering this! According to Wikipedia,
“The project was never carried out, being cancelled primarily out of a fear of a negative public reaction, with the potential militarization of space that it would also have signified, and because a Moon landing would undoubtedly be a more popular achievement in the eyes of the American and international public alike. A similar project by the Soviet Union also never came to fruition.”
So, this has never been carried out (unfortunately) and so, we have no physical facts for this. But, we could carry out a hypothetical (VERY IMPORTANT) science experiment, with a 100 megaton thermonuclear warhead.
Lets push the button (You know, the one that says “Do not push”) and see what happens.
Pushing the button
In the first 10 milliseconds, the bomb undergoes a fission chain reaction, and contains one of the brightest things in the universe. Then, it, well, explodes. So far, so good. But everything that happens after is really strange, compared to what happens on Earth, because of one major difference. The lack of an atmosphere.
On Earth, the bubble of death would push air out of the way, and make air push out with the fireball. This is one of the most destructive things in a nuclear explosion, the shockwave. But the air also helps slow down the fireball. On the Moon, there is no atmosphere to do either of these things, and so, we get the bubble to keep expanding. Also, the explosion bushes out a lot of x-rays and gamma rays, most of which would have been stopped by the atmosphere, so, there is no “safe distance” to watch this.
That’s not very good, but it gets even worse. Some of the shockwave goes into the ground, creating a huge moonquake. If there were people on the far side of the moon, they would think that this shaking was just a big asteroid.
Debris is shot into the sky, faster than escape velocity, and without the atmosphere, the debris can escape the moon entirely. If anyone is orbiting the moon, and happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, then they are in for a really BAD day. Many of these asteroids will go toward the Earth, but luckily, none of them are big enough to get to the ground. Any satellite, astronaut, or space station, though, are going to have a really bad time.
And finally, the explosion comes to an end. On Earth, the fireball rises up, like a hot air balloon, causing cool air around it to enter in from the bottom. This is what creates the mushroom cloud. But, (as you probably know by now) there is no atmosphere on the moon, and so, no mushroom cloud.
What DOES happen is, well, pretty BORING. A few seconds after the button push (I TOLD you not to push it), all that happens is that the coldness of space quickly rushes into fill the hot areas, and cools it down, so all that happens is that the fireball will turn red and disappear. From Earth, it would be visible as a big bright spot, but it will fade away in a few seconds. The particles catch the sun’s light, and creates a sort of shimmering glass-like thing.
What about the Moon’s orbit? It’s totally unchanged. According to Kurzgesgat, “Trying to move the moon with a nuke is the same as trying to move a truck by blowing on it.” All that is left is just another crater on the moon. How many nukes do you need to move the moon, though? Do we have that many nuclear weapons?
The answer is, no. The most powerful nuke EVER DETONATED was the soviet’s “Tsar Bomba,” which put out an output of about 50 megatons of TNT. The combination of all the nuclear bombs that has been tested in the world would measure in at about 500 megatons of TNT. The combination of EVERY nuclear bomb in the world would measure in at about 7,000 megatons of TNT. To send the moon careening away from the Earth would require about 5 trillion megatons of TNT, so basically, we need to strike the moon in precisely the right location, with the power of about 1.5 MILLION times greater than the worlds entire nuclear arsenal.
However, we don’t need to do this. The moon is constantly edging away from us, without any human intervention. The moon’s pull drags a portion of the Earth’s water out of its natural position, creating bulges at each end of the planet. As Earth rotates, these bulges exert a force on the moon, dragging it through orbit and adding to the moon’s kinetic energy. As the moon gains energy, its orbit grows ever larger. On average, the moon floats 3 or 4 centimetres farther away every year.
Life without the moon would become VERY strange without the moon influencing the tides. With only the sun to pull on the oceans, high tide would come at noon and midnight of very day.
Over thousands or millions of years, Earth’s spin would become very chaotic, because of some complicated physics that I don’t have time to explain. If you want to know, go to https://www.universetoday.com/14894/mars-tilt/. This tilt is very important for the seasons. If the moon disappeared, then Earth would start to teeter DRAMATICALLY on it’s axis, perhaps as much as 60º.
* @ .
* @ .
* @ .
(That’s a representation of 60 degrees.)
It’s even possible, though unlikely, that Earth would get hit by a huge object and topple over, like what happened to Uranus.
Sometimes, it’s nice to leave the world like it is.
Sources
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEfPBt9dU60 What if We Nuke the Moon?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon#:~:text=A%20nuclear%20weapon%20
https://slate.com/technology/2012/11/nuking-the-moon-how-many-warheads-would-it-take-to-push-the-moon-out-of-orbit.html Goodnight, Moon
Well, it’s complicated.
What if we take a powerful nuclear weapon, and detonate it on the moon? Would huge chunks be blown off? Would the whole Moon be destroyed? Would the moon get pushed toward the Earth? Well, we don’t know, but we can make a pretty good guess.
This idea isn’t as crazy as it sounds. In 1958, America was seriously considering this! According to Wikipedia,
“The project was never carried out, being cancelled primarily out of a fear of a negative public reaction, with the potential militarization of space that it would also have signified, and because a Moon landing would undoubtedly be a more popular achievement in the eyes of the American and international public alike. A similar project by the Soviet Union also never came to fruition.”
So, this has never been carried out (unfortunately) and so, we have no physical facts for this. But, we could carry out a hypothetical (VERY IMPORTANT) science experiment, with a 100 megaton thermonuclear warhead.
Lets push the button (You know, the one that says “Do not push”) and see what happens.
Pushing the button
In the first 10 milliseconds, the bomb undergoes a fission chain reaction, and contains one of the brightest things in the universe. Then, it, well, explodes. So far, so good. But everything that happens after is really strange, compared to what happens on Earth, because of one major difference. The lack of an atmosphere.
On Earth, the bubble of death would push air out of the way, and make air push out with the fireball. This is one of the most destructive things in a nuclear explosion, the shockwave. But the air also helps slow down the fireball. On the Moon, there is no atmosphere to do either of these things, and so, we get the bubble to keep expanding. Also, the explosion bushes out a lot of x-rays and gamma rays, most of which would have been stopped by the atmosphere, so, there is no “safe distance” to watch this.
That’s not very good, but it gets even worse. Some of the shockwave goes into the ground, creating a huge moonquake. If there were people on the far side of the moon, they would think that this shaking was just a big asteroid.
Debris is shot into the sky, faster than escape velocity, and without the atmosphere, the debris can escape the moon entirely. If anyone is orbiting the moon, and happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, then they are in for a really BAD day. Many of these asteroids will go toward the Earth, but luckily, none of them are big enough to get to the ground. Any satellite, astronaut, or space station, though, are going to have a really bad time.
And finally, the explosion comes to an end. On Earth, the fireball rises up, like a hot air balloon, causing cool air around it to enter in from the bottom. This is what creates the mushroom cloud. But, (as you probably know by now) there is no atmosphere on the moon, and so, no mushroom cloud.
What DOES happen is, well, pretty BORING. A few seconds after the button push (I TOLD you not to push it), all that happens is that the coldness of space quickly rushes into fill the hot areas, and cools it down, so all that happens is that the fireball will turn red and disappear. From Earth, it would be visible as a big bright spot, but it will fade away in a few seconds. The particles catch the sun’s light, and creates a sort of shimmering glass-like thing.
What about the Moon’s orbit? It’s totally unchanged. According to Kurzgesgat, “Trying to move the moon with a nuke is the same as trying to move a truck by blowing on it.” All that is left is just another crater on the moon. How many nukes do you need to move the moon, though? Do we have that many nuclear weapons?
The answer is, no. The most powerful nuke EVER DETONATED was the soviet’s “Tsar Bomba,” which put out an output of about 50 megatons of TNT. The combination of all the nuclear bombs that has been tested in the world would measure in at about 500 megatons of TNT. The combination of EVERY nuclear bomb in the world would measure in at about 7,000 megatons of TNT. To send the moon careening away from the Earth would require about 5 trillion megatons of TNT, so basically, we need to strike the moon in precisely the right location, with the power of about 1.5 MILLION times greater than the worlds entire nuclear arsenal.
However, we don’t need to do this. The moon is constantly edging away from us, without any human intervention. The moon’s pull drags a portion of the Earth’s water out of its natural position, creating bulges at each end of the planet. As Earth rotates, these bulges exert a force on the moon, dragging it through orbit and adding to the moon’s kinetic energy. As the moon gains energy, its orbit grows ever larger. On average, the moon floats 3 or 4 centimetres farther away every year.
Life without the moon would become VERY strange without the moon influencing the tides. With only the sun to pull on the oceans, high tide would come at noon and midnight of very day.
Over thousands or millions of years, Earth’s spin would become very chaotic, because of some complicated physics that I don’t have time to explain. If you want to know, go to https://www.universetoday.com/14894/mars-tilt/. This tilt is very important for the seasons. If the moon disappeared, then Earth would start to teeter DRAMATICALLY on it’s axis, perhaps as much as 60º.
* @ .
* @ .
* @ .
(That’s a representation of 60 degrees.)
It’s even possible, though unlikely, that Earth would get hit by a huge object and topple over, like what happened to Uranus.
Sometimes, it’s nice to leave the world like it is.
Sources
www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEfPBt9dU60 What if We Nuke the Moon?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon#:~:text=A%20nuclear%20weapon%20
https://slate.com/technology/2012/11/nuking-the-moon-how-many-warheads-would-it-take-to-push-the-moon-out-of-orbit.html Goodnight, Moon
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