Behold! The Rings of the Earth.
Let's blow up the moon
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This would have a monstrous affect on so many species that use the moon in various ways to determine mating, feeding and defensive behaviors. Yes, the entire idea is ridiculous to begin with, but the effects could easily devastate this planet given the indirect dependencies we have with our satellite cousin.
The problem with blowing up the moon to make this, is that it would probably majorly mess up the ecosystem. A lot of creatures depend on the tides, which are caused by the moon.
But my oh my it would be pretty.
Thank you, that was absolutely stunning!
And here's the prequel!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Csj7vMKy4EI
You know, I always liked Earth, cool planet and all, but now it looks kinda boring after I have seen how awesome it would look with rings. :(
Clearly something future generations will have to work towards. ^_^
That's cool. I wonder what sort of religious mythologies would have developed over this?
What would human theology and astrology look like if the Earth had rings like Saturn's?
As pretty as those images were I was disappointed that none of the surface shots showed Earth shadows. The complicated interplay between shadows of the earth from both the sun and the moon would have made them even more fascinating.
Also the look of the moon would be changed as the hard shadow from the sun would be visibly filled by ringlight.
A partial answer.
http://www.amazon.com/Tragedy-Moon-Isaac-Asimov/dp/0440189993
I remember reading somewhere (Bill Bryson's "A short history of nearly everything") that the moon helps stabilize Earth's orbit around the sun, and that if we did lose the moon, Earth would drift either towards or away from the sun, causing radical temperature changes that would trigger floods and earthquakes and other stuff that's wayyyyy worse than global warming/climate change.
But I wonder, if we blasted all of Earth's garbage into space in such a way that it started to orbit the Earth, would that form rings?
That was beautiful! I did too wonder what our planet's history and religion would shape up to be if our human history included rings in the sky. Maybe a world religion based on an arch instead of a cross?
Something that came to mind is, how would our knowledge of astronomy be different? Would it be better or worse? The presence of a bright ring system in the sky during the night seems to me, would wash out a lot of stellar details until we developed enough near-space travel capability to go beyond them. But then the presence of a ring system might also lead us to certain conclusions about the way the universe works sooner, because instead of around a different planet, we'd see it all up close.
Would we even be completely aware of the other planets in the Solar System?
The video doesn't actually show us acquiring the rings by crushing the Moon. But the idea of this made me think of something else. The Earth-Moon system's center of mass - the barycenter - isn't actually at the earth's core, but about a thousand miles off. So, the Moon revolves around the Earth, but the Earth actually revolves around itself because of the mass balance.
If the influence of the Moon were suddenly eliminated, wouldnt the sudden relocation of the barycenter to the Earth's core add its own mechanical juice to the cataclysm in addition to whatever crustal changes would obtain?
Yeah, I wantched Space:1999 as a kid.
Yeah. Seriously, what have satellites ever done for us?
there's a simpler solution, already in progress...
http://spectregroup.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/earth-will-have-rings/