Wednesday, 13 January 2016

Impact of the Moon on Earth (56)

Change of Posting Style

Unfortunately due to a lack of time, I’m going to be changing my posting style. Instead of generating new and original content I am going to be posting some interesting excerpts from books on the Moon that I have come across.


Introduction

Here is an excerpt about the impact the Moon has had on the Earth. It has been taken from the book: “Moons of the Solar System (From Giant Ganymede to Dainty Dactyl)” by James A.Hall, published by Springer.

Excerpt

“Ever since humanity can recall, Luna has been in our sky by night and by day. For some it is a simple source of light, to others it is seen as a source of protection or inspiration and it causes superstition among others. Recent generations made it a goal to reach the surface. Regardless, for almost everyone, it holds a special place in our hearts and souls.

Light is one of the most obvious effects of the moon. During the day, the Earth has a seemingly unending source of light, the Sun. While the Sun does have a finite life span, few other than cosmologists concern themselves with such factors. For most it is enough that it exists now, and can be depended on until their dying day, as well as the dying day of the next 100 generations (which is considered long even in the astronomical timescale, though the cosmologists consider this rather shortsighted.) Light affects all functions through the circadian cycle which governs our day and night, various biological functions that slow down at night (like waste processing) which is based in part on light, and seasonal affective disorder is also based on day length/daylight length, and some treatments are based on light therapy. There are even people who study the effects of light on life; the terms scotobiologist and photobiologist have surfaced in recent years. The moon’s brightness is enough that in times before electricity it could aid in navigation, and it is still manipulated in the fishing techniques for certain fish. Even navigation would be impacted since the moon is one of the many objects which ship navigators have historically used to chart their path.

Beyond the practical, just listing the works of fiction about Luna, poetry and music about the moon, and people inspired by it would be a full-time job. If someone thinks the moon controls their life, they might look into this and discover the pseudo-science of astrology. Or they may use the older term for this belief and coin themselves a luna tic. The moon is astronomy for the everyman.

It may even have been a factor in the existence of life at all. A number of theories indicate there was a primordial soup on Earth. All reputable theories first evolve life in some sort of liquid medium. And the moon is certainly one of the primary factors of tides. Therefore the argument follows this short line: life requires tides; significant tides require the moon. Without the moon, tides would be much weaker (driven mostly by the sun) and with weaker tides and less mixing of this soup, life may never have arisen on Earth. Geodynamicists theorize that the ocean’s tidal flow, caused by the moon, may have made the climate more hospitable for speciation. Some molecular biologists even speculate that fast lunar tidal oscillation could have created an environment where protonucleic acid fragments might have benefited from the high salinity of the frequent low-tide periods. That cycle of rapidly forming and dissolving molecules in the rapidly rising and receding tidal waters could have eventually led to the development of DNA. This debate rages on.”


Summary

The Moon for sure has had an impact on the earth. The excerpt principally addresses the physical impacts the Moon has had on Earth, from fishing techniques, to navigation, to affecting our sleep patterns by the amount of extra light present at night, to literature, myth, legend to finally the role of the Moon in arising of life on the planet.

The interesting point about this excerpt is that in the last paragraph, there is some agreement there with esotericism, saying that life emerged from the waters and because the Moon heavily influences the waters the Moon has had a significant role in shaping life on this planet since its beginning. In esotericism the Moon is related to Life, fertility, conception and gestation.


End (56).

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