Why The Moon Must Leave

In the beginning - after the “big bang;” gases were swirling, space particles were zipping through the universe and life was exploding.  A tiny source of energy emerging was the sun.  Its gravity was intensifying and heat was rising.  There was light.  As the sun matured it pulled together the planets, asteroids and those pesky harbingers of doom and grace, comets.  The earth in this concoction of light and gravity was spinning and gaining mass.

One day (actually before there were days) very early in unrecorded time, a big rock hit the earth.  The violent collision made the earth a roiling blob of magma.  So enormous was the cataclysm that the combined fusion of the big rock and the earth created a lopsided spinning lump that split in two.  The smaller part (the new moon) began to orbit the larger part (the new earth).  Two turbulent, fiery revolving blobs shook their figurative fists at one another.  The attraction was undeniable and at first the distance between the two was very, very close.  The earth's gravity trapped the moon.  But the orbit of the moon created a force that drew away from the earth ever so gradually.

As everything began to cool little chunks of space ice fell on earth, melted and began to pool.  The moon pulled at the water and the sun baked the air.  Little amoebas began to dance around in the wet stuff.  Carbon dioxide, oxygen, clouds, lightning, rain and wind became a potent brew that spawned bigger and bigger creatures.  Pretty soon, that is expeditiously in geological time, came humans, agriculture and space aliens.

None of this would have happened so easily if there had been no super collision and the moon was not up there.  The moon stabilized the earth's rotation and helped provide the changing seasons.  The centrifugal force of the orbit around the earth caused the moon to move away from the earth slightly and continuously.  When the moon pulled away just enough it periodically eclipsed the sun and the sun eclipsed the moon.  That's when the moon really got powerful.  It gave humans an easy out.  When a calamity would befall us we could blame it on the solar eclipse.  After all, if it made the birds circle in the air (lost without the light) until the sun would return, it must be powerful enough to mess-up meager humans.

The earth's shadow can be seen on the moon.  Lunar cycles march through the calendar and command our attention.  The moon lights the night for wild dogs to howl at and for humans to behold.  Poets write love sonnets and astronauts fly missions to it, yet it’s all still a big mystery.  But from the beginning the moon was only a temporary companion.  Its orbit was always widening, its influence weakening.  Like lovers so close but drifting so slowly apart until they are indeed on their own.  No gravity can keep it close.  No more tugging at the tides.  No more wailing at the moon.  No more poets waxing eloquently or waning horribly about the moon.

When it finally goes it will be an ambassador of the earth.  Like the Interstellar Missions of Voyager with effigies of us and messages from earth in fifty-five languages, the moon will show the universe what we are like.  It is so much a part of us.  Our foot prints are on it.  Before it disappears who knows what other parts of us will be there, like the lunar landing sites.   Inevitably the moon will finally wander away.

The sun will spend its hydrogen and become a red giant (twelve times as big as it is now).  It will render the earth into a cinder and then implode to become a white dwarf.  It will lose it’s gravitational grip on the planets and the comets.  The solar system will be adrift in the dark as the moon was, perhaps finding some other super-hot gaseous mass to orbit and take meaning from.

So the lessons will be learned and the stars will burn out and the creatures will return to dust.  As humanity evolves, the moon will always be a solitary figure, reflecting the suns light and perhaps giving us hope in the darkest moments.