Earth has multiple moons

I do realize human evolution and society going roughly as in OTL if this happened is somewhere between very unlikely and ASB but how would it effect our society.

Coming up to the 20th Century would different Moon's be explored by the US and the USSR
 
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Different, more irregular tides. Possibly different tectonic plates. Different mythologies and astrology. Probably faster development of astronomy. Possibly earlier calculus.
 
I do realize human evolution and society going roughly as in OTL if this happened but how would it effect our society.

Coming up to the 20th Century would different Moon's be explored by the US and the USSR

i doubt there would be a USA or USSR. in fact, its extremely unlikely there would be life as we know it at all. the formation of our own moon happened from a collision with another planet. to get another such moon, if it came about in the same way, would result in different chemicals, different elements, and different tectonic plates, which would completely alter the course of life on earth. in fact, if this collision happened too late, it would probably wipe out all life on earth in its infancy.

if we gained another moon the same way mars did, however, with a small asteroid or comet that started revolving around the earth, that would be more likely, and cause the least damage, as well as the fact that it could have happened at any moment in earths history.
 

NothingNow

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I do realize human evolution and society going roughly as in OTL if this happened but how would it effect our society.

We would not evolve. Quite simply, you're putting a POD several billion years in the past, and creating a vastly different planet, with far more complicated Tidal forces being involved. Our Biosphere would be completely different. This is an Alien world, not our own, even if it has the same orbit, around the same star, and in the same arm of the same galaxy.
 
Lets say you have a smaller one, farther out, but big enough to show a little disk, captured by Earth's gravity. The effect on history would be very different depending on when it was captured. Could be before recorded history, say 20,000 years ago, or right at the dawn of the earliest civilizations, say 7,500 years ago, or pick a 1,000 year increment after that, or tomorrow, for that matter.
 
First, allow me to use my flamethrower to kill the ten pounds of butterflies that just appeared.

Next, more moons would probably mean a more prolonged space race, for sure. That would lead to more advanced spacecraft, and perhaps a eventual mission to Mars.
 
If they're just captured asteroids without a significant gravitational impact then astronomy would be developed ahead of time, but I don't know if it's possible to avoid their orbit to be perturbed in the long time
 
*cough* The Earth does have multiple moons. ;)

Most of them just aren't visible...

Not that we know of there aren't, there's just the one. If you're thinking of 3753 Cruithne, that actually orbits the Sun. That's not to say that asteroid-type natural satellites of the Earth won't ever be discovered, but they've not found anything yet.
 
I think he's speaking about artificial satellites and space trash in general.

The thing is, anything bigger than Deimos and Phobos is going to seriously alterate tides and the very same speed of Earth's rotation, causing who knows what changes in the evolution of life.
 
Is there anybody in this forum who knows physics?
How distant has an asteroid to be from the earth-moon system in order to have a stable and unperturbed orbit around earth? Would it be too far away?
 
As others already said, there would be no humanity.

First you have to realize that the the Earth-moon system is not as much a planet-moon system but like a binary planetary system (2 planets). The moon is exceptionally big in comparison to earth. The only way to get more than one moon, these moons have to be smaller. The current moon would make most other moons orbits pretty soon unstable. So with no collision/or a smaller one, resulting in a smaller moon the tectonics & evolution would differ greatly, resulting in a swarm of butterflies the size of the solarsystem.

And as toco mentioned, it is going to influence the rotationspeed of earth.
Smaller moons means that the earthrotation gets slowed down less than with the current moon. So adding to everything you may have an earth that has a day that is like 16hrs
 
Is there anybody in this forum who knows physics?
How distant has an asteroid to be from the earth-moon system in order to have a stable and unperturbed orbit around earth? Would it be too far away?

Depends on the size, mass, speed, etc. The faster it orbits the closer it can get. Realistically though it'd have to be either completely inside or completely outside Luna's orbit. Or at an angle that doesn't cross the moon's path.

Of course you could have natural satellites at any of the Earth-Moon Lagrange Points. Significantly smaller than Luna though.
 
Depends on the size, mass, speed, etc. The faster it orbits the closer it can get. Realistically though it'd have to be either completely inside or completely outside Luna's orbit. Or at an angle that doesn't cross the moon's path.

Of course you could have natural satellites at any of the Earth-Moon Lagrange Points. Significantly smaller than Luna though.

ok thanks ... what's the max size it can have if it stays on the same plane of the earth moon system and have a stable long-term orbit ? Can asteroids at a lagrange points be perturbed by other planets like Mars and Venus?

Regards
 
Is there an inherent reason that a collision between the protoearth and another planet during the early formation of the solar system could not have resulted in two moderately-sized moons rather than one large one? Let's not be too certain of our butterflies. A PoD so far in the past is just as likely to allow a trajectory in which intelligent primates evolve several billion years later as anything else. At this distance in time, presuming any outcome is unlikely, so why not presume, for the sake of argument, that self-aware creatures like us evolve?

So how would more complex tides, possibly increased volcanism, two night lights, two solar eclipse cycles, multiple lunar eclipse cycles, a different kind of night and other more complex patterns of astronomical movements affect the growing scientific awareness of "people". How might it affect how early spaceflight evolved? These are reasonable things to ask.
 
ok thanks ... what's the max size it can have if it stays on the same plane of the earth moon system and have a stable long-term orbit ? Can asteroids at a lagrange points be perturbed by other planets like Mars and Venus?

Regards

Absolutely no idea how big it could get. Other planets would disturb the orbit, but no more than they do the orbits of the Earth or Luna. Their gravity is too low and they're too far away.
 
Life in some form would probably exist. Humans certainly wouldn't though.

Doesnt it really depend on when such event occurs and how it occurs...if it were to be the size of say Pallas or Ceres and a captured body say in an extreme orbit at the outer limits of Earths Gravity well. At a time when Earths Human population was small enough but still adaptable enough to survive in isolated pockets and then spread back into the newly changed environment, then yes it would have a profound effect on mythology and cosmology...it would probably be associated then as the harbinger of death and devastation.
 
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