Posted on 05/01/2018 7:32:11 PM PDT by SamAdams76
If you simply flew up into space and sawed the moon in half with a giant hacksaw, most likely, nothing would happen. This is because gravitational force would hold the two halves together, sort of like a couple of magnets.
But what if you were able to get a couple of giant crowbars and put a person on the other side and then count to 3 and totally separate the two halves of the moon?
With enough strength applied, you could theoretically push the two halves far enough apart where the gravitational force no longer pulls them together and now the two halves start drifting apart.
This is where the fun begins.
It would be a pretty awesome sight from planet Earth, that I can tell you. Now if you left them in the same orbit (around the Earth), they'd eventually meet up with each other so you would have to find a way to push them into different orbits - maybe if you put a bunch of thruster rockets on one of the halves...I'm just thinking out loud here. I'm sure others will have better ideas.
So in essence, if we are going to successfully split the moon apart, we will need to apply enough delta V to one half of it to put it into a drastically different orbit. No mean task!
Here on Earth, in addition to the spectacular sight, we'd get reductions in tides with and increase in variability if spring and neap tides.
Long term, one of the moon halves will go into a more elliptical orbit, diving down close to the atmosphere of the Earth and perhaps even skim off much of the atmosphere, resulting in widespread extinction of species and other unfavorable effects.
In conclusion, splitting the moon in half, while certainly a tempting endeavor, should probably not be seriously attempted as the end result could well be catastrophic with respect to planet Earth.
It would still take a huge amount of energy to overcome the gravitational force between the two halves.
You’d have my favorite snack.
And just yesterday I got one right out of the oven and then frosted fresh. Living large.
We can’t see the back end of the moon. So, maybe it isn’t even there.
You could make two giant fondues.
It wouldn’t work, I learned at a very young age it’s made of green cheese and it sticks together.
Well, I was going to do it, but this article convinced me not to.
Why not eighths?
Although we’d have to update all the tide charts...
If anyone remembers Thundarr the Barbarian this was achieved just by a planetoid passing closely to the moon.
Freegards
The flat moon society?
You couldn’t use rockets to pull the moon apart, it is just like the story of Baron Munchaussen getting out of the swamp by pulling on his head really hard.
Have you not seen the supposed NASA photos of the dark side of the Moon, when the astronauts first went around it, on either Apollo 8 or 10, I forget which? Anyway, their photos supposedly show complex structures on the far side, which we never see from earth, because the Moon does not rotate. Google it! But, it could also be a vast, tin-foil hat conspiracy theory, to quote Hilary Clinton.
I see by the picture you’ve taken that you’ve already done it
with complete disregard for the consequences.
I’d carve it into a giant set of butt cheeks.
Is rubber cement even around any more?
Now I know what theoretical scientists talk about when they get drunk and stoned with their gov’t grant money!
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