杏吧原创

No more Moon

What would be the effect on the Earth if an alien spaceship came along and dragged the Moon away?

鈥� Any alien spaceship stealing the Moon would unleash a devastating chain of events that would ultimately spell the end for life on Earth.

The most immediate difference would be the disappearance of the tides. Both the Sun and Moon influence the tides on Earth, but the Moon is the dominant force. Remove the Moon and the daily rush of the tides would recede to a gentle ripple.

The next omen of doom would be wild swings in the Earth鈥檚 rotational axis from a position almost perpendicular to the ecliptic plane all the way to being practically parallel to it. These swings would provoke drastic climate changes: when the axis points straight up, each point on the globe would receive a constant amount of heat throughout the year but, when the axis lies parallel to the ecliptic, Earthlings would spend six months of the year sweltering under the unending blaze of the Sun, only to spin round and shiver for the next six months, hidden on the frigid surface of the Earth鈥檚 dark side.

Of all calamities, though, the creature to be pitied first is the marine organism called 鈥渘autilus鈥�. This mollusc lives in an elegant shell shaped like a perfect spiralpartitioned off into compartments. The nautilus only lives in the outermost partition, and each day adds a new layer to its shell. At the end of each month, when the Moon has completed one revolution around Earth, the nautilus abandons its current compartment, closes it up with a partition, and moves into a new one. 杏吧原创s have proved that the number of layers making up a chamber are directly linked to the number of days it takes the Moon to circle the Earth. Remove the Moon and the nautilus lies stranded, forever locked in the same chamber and wishing ruefully for the days when it could look forward to a new home.

Andrew Turpin

New Moat, Pembrokeshire, UK

鈥� The Moon and the Earth both have a gravitational effect on each other. They orbit about a point in between them and, as a pair, in turn they rotate around the Sun. If the Moon was suddenly taken away by aliens, the pull from the Moon would disappear thus unbalancing Earth鈥檚 orbit. This would lead to the Earth plunging out of its current orbit in a direction which depends on the position of the Moon and Earth at that time. It would probably result in a more elliptical orbit and greater extremes in temperature and massive climate changes would make our planet uninhabitable.

Knowing this, we should all worship the Moon because we might have not evolved into what we are without it

Hovick Boughosyan

London, UK

鈥� The end of tides would have a major detrimental effect on coastal ecosystems. Mangroves, for example, rely on regular tidal motions to sweep in nutrients and such like. It would also change the patterns of ocean currents, causing major climate change.

Additionally, a major source of night-time light would disappear. This would affect the behaviour of all nocturnal animals and the synchronisation of behaviour associated with the lunar period. Owls would find it more difficult to hunt and insects would find it harder to find a mate because they fly up towards the Moon.

Simon Iveson

Mayfield, New South Wales, Australia

鈥� To reassure the many nervous readers who contacted us, we can confirm that we have no inside knowledge of an alien plot to remove the Moon. It would seem an unlikely stunt, even for civilisations with a sense of humour that is advanced many millions of years beyond our own 鈥� Ed

Dairy dilemma

In England a decade ago, pasteurised bottled milk would go sour very quickly, especially during hot weather. Specially treated UHT milk would keep far longer but it tasted pretty awful. Now pasteurised milk keeps fresh for weeks, and UHT milk tastes almost the same as pasteurised. What revolution in milk technology has caused this?

鈥� The time it takes milk to go sour depends on the concentration of bacteria in the bottle and the temperature at which the milk is stored. There are several factors acting together to explain why pasteurised milk keeps longer than it used to.

There has been a reduction in the total bacterial count (TBC) in milk when it leaves the farm. British farmers are now paid according to the TBC, so they have a real incentive to improve this. Because pasteurisation kills a percentage of bacteria, a lower TBC before heat treatment leads to a lower bacterial count afterwards, so it takes longer for bacteria to multiply to the point where milk is detectable as sour.

Milk is now refrigerated on farm very soon after it the cow is milked, which will be another factor contributing to the fall in TBC.

Consumers also now buy milk directly from supermarket fridges and quickly take it back to fridges at home. In the past, milk delivered to the door in the summer might easily become warm.

Again, many people now drink semi-skimmed milk and it certainly seems to be the case that this milk takes longer to go off, perhaps because the fat contributes most to the sour taste. When semi-skimmed milk does go off it seems more bitter than sour.

Interestingly, in the days of milk churns, people were employed to sniff churns to detect if the milk was sour. There were definitely people who were more sensitive to this than others.

You might imagine antibiotics added to milk inhibit bacterial growth, slow the souring process. But this is unlikely to be a factor because milk is tested for antibiotics and, if present, producers are highly penalised.

Nick Honhold

Edinburgh, UK

This week鈥檚 questions

Gut feeling

How does the stomach repair itself after injury? I would guess that the normal repair proteins and enzymes in a human body鈥檚 toolbox, would not function, if at all, in the warm, strongly acid bath inside the stomach. So what is involved in this case?

Adam Bryce

Sydney, Australia

Cat鈥檚 eyes

I was told cats can鈥檛 watch television because their motion perception is so fast that they see the bright dot scanning the screen and no picture. However, friends insist that their cats get quite excited when a cat appears on television. What is the truth?

Eugenie Kirk

Suhr, Switzerland