Cienciaes.com: The Moon and Civilization

2021-08-12 17:33:02

The problem of the origin of the Moon and its influence on the evolution of life, and especially intelligence, on Earth has been one of the topics that have interested me the most, to the point that I wrote a book about it, titled “One Moon One Civilization, why the moon tells us that we are alone in the universe”. The book was published in 2010, but the main idea of its theme was already in 2001, specifically in August of that year. How do the decades go by, huh? In August 2001 I was writing an article for the now-defunct newspaper La Verdad de Albacete that I have not published before in the form of a podcast, and that is still somewhat topical, as I will show you later. The article said the following.

Here you can read the article The moon and civilization

The origin of the Moon was by no means fully clarified in the year 2001, and important issues remained to be resolved in order to finally accept with confidence the idea of the great impact as the origin of the Earth-Moon system. The last international meeting on this subject took place in London in 2013. The British Royal Society published a report on it in which it mentioned that there were eight aspects that the hypothesis of the big collision that caused the Moon had yet to explain precisely. These eight questions were as follows:
1. Why is the Moon less dense than the Earth?
2. Why is its size relative to the main planet the largest in the solar system?
3. Why is it moving away from Earth and before it was much closer?
4. Why does it store most of the angular momentum of the Earth-Moon system?
5. Why was it formed later (at least 30 million years later) than the rest of the planets in the Solar System?
6. Why was the Moon originally covered by an ocean of magma, according to the evidence obtained?
7. Why does it have fewer volatile elements than Earth?
8. Why is the ratio of isotopes of non-volatile elements very similar to that of Earth?

The Big Collision hypothesis can explain the first seven questions without too much trouble. The thorniest question was the last one, the ratio of isotopes of certain chemical elements is very similar. It is known that this composition varies between the Earth and other bodies in the solar system that formed in other parts of it. This is probably due at least in part to the gravitational effects responsible for the accretion of the original planetary cloud that gave rise to the Sun and the planets. The heavier isotopes will be concentrated closer to the center of that cloud, while the lighter ones will stay further out. If the isotopic composition of the Earth and the Moon is very similar, this means that the two bodies that formed them by collision must already have a similar composition, which in turn implies that they must have formed in places in the solar system. at a similar distance from the center. In my book I already mentioned an idea that could explain this formation. It was about the formation of a planet in the same orbit as Earth’s, but in one of the so-called Lagrange points of that orbit, of which there are five possible ones. These points, simplifying, are points in the Earth’s orbit where the gravitational attraction between the Sun and the Earth would cancel each other out. The location of a body at one of the Lagrange points can be unstable if the bodies keep accreting mass, which changes the balance of gravitational forces. This imbalance can expel at least one of the bodies from its Lagrange point and place it on a collision course with the other, which is necessarily close to it.

Has this problem of isotopic similarity between the Earth and the Moon been solved?

In March 2021, the journal Nature Communications published an article by researchers Nielsen, Behkaert and Auro, from the laboratory NIRVANAlocated in Massachusetts, USA, in which they analyze in detail the isotopic composition of the element Vanadium between lunar rocks and Earth. From the results of this analysis, they conclude that the small differences observed can be explained by the distribution of isotopes that occurred when Proto-Earth was formed a few million years before the collision, which already enriched the nucleus of that protoplanet in heavier isotopes and impoverished it. their outer mantle on them before the collision. The results of this analysis support the Big Collision hypothesis for the origin of the Moon and indicate that 80% of the material on the Moon comes from the planet that collided with Earth. This planet must indeed have had a similar isotopic composition, indicating that it must have formed in the same orbit or in a very close orbit, in which the material of the dust cloud that originated them was very similar.

So you see, dear friend, it seems that little by little the question of the origin of the Moon is becoming clearer. Nothing that I already told in the article twenty years ago and that I explained in much more detail in my book seems to have been contradicted by new data and scientific research. I congratulate myself on that, why not say it in these times when happiness is so rare?
Of course, another wool to be carded is the matter of whether or not we are alone in the universe as intelligent beings. In this also the latest studies seem to be turning the tables. Researchers at Oxford University’s Institute for the Future of Humanity published last year a statistical analysis based on the Drake equation, which I explain in my book. This equation does not contemplate the Moon factor, which I do include in it, as I also explain. Well, be that as it may, their analysis indicates that the probability that we are alone, not in the galaxy, but in the observable universe, ranges from 39 to 85%. For the galaxy, the numbers range from 53% to 99.6%. And these numbers, I insist, do not consider the idea that I defend here that the Moon is essential for the development of intelligence.

Another more recent job. Published in the journal Astrobiology last March 2021, it analyzes the time necessary for the required transitions to occur so that life appears and it evolves through the necessary stages to generate intelligent beings, if not as smart as human beings, at least they are as smart as an average politician. Well, their conclusions indicate that intelligent life is extremely improbable and that, under normal conditions, it should take several orders of magnitude longer than the life of Earth to emerge, that is, 4,500 million years would not be enough, rather, it would take at least 45 billion, or almost four times the age of the universe. Probably not even 45 billion years is enough on planets other than Earth. Come on, there is no time for intelligence to be very common in the universe. Why then has it appeared on Earth? Again, the very rare event of the collision in the conditions that originated the Moon may be the explanation, the factor that will accelerate the appearance of intelligent beings by activating the colonization of the mainland, the only place where advanced intelligence and technology are possible, thanks to the tides.

If we are finally alone, don’t we have an even greater responsibility to protect and care for the planet that hosts us? Aren’t our planet and our moon rare jewels in the whole universe? Aren’t we humans, and all life, an even rarer jewel?

Take care of yourselves and yes, take care of others and the planet, because we are probably more exceptional than previously thought.

Jorge Laborda (08/12/2021)

Works by Jorge Laborda.

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