One of the alien worlds in my stories has no moon, but it does have life and even an alien civilization on it. I did some research on how the moon helped life form on Earth and I'm trying to decide how I can create the same effects on a different planet without the moon itself. Here's my notes on what the moon does:
1: It affects the tides. Without the moon, we'd have half as many tides and the ocean would be more stagnant(?) causing organic life to grow stagnant as well. (Quick note: The planet in my story is a desert planet with only one large body of water on its surface–almost all the water is underground.)
2: It stabilizes Earth's axial tilt. The tilt causes the seasons, and if the tilt were irregular, we'd have erratic periods of extreme hot and cold which would make it very hard for living things to adapt in time.
3: It illuminates the dark side of the planet, allowing animal activity to continue after sunset. I'm not sure how important this one is–animals could just evolve other ways to hunt and forage that don't involve sight–but it's a big deal here on Earth.
4: It slightly slows down Earth's rotation, allowing longer days and nights and increasing overall stability. There might be other benefits to this one, I'm not sure.
So here's what I need: I need to know how many of those things a planet can lack while still supporting a complex ecosystem, and how to replicate the things I do need without adding a moon. Please give me your ideas!
If there's no moon, you might be able to make a point for chaotic desert life, where the animals have been forced to live in darkness and instability.
True. I know a lot of creatures already live in caves/ravines/etc. because the environment's less hostile there. I'm just not sure how much instability I can get away with before it seems unlikely that complex life would be able to evolve in the first place.
"What do you know? Haven't you ever heard of suspension of disbelief?"
If I wanted to force my readers to suspend disbelief that much, I probably wouldn't have made this thread. I enjoy thinking about the science behind my stories, it's a fun challenge, and I thought perhaps others might want to brainstorm with me, but if not then I'll just figure the problem out by myself :)
I apologize for sounding rude, I was quoting a movie where they used that line.
If you really don't want a moon, I'd suggest some crazy volcanic activity to balance it out. Volcanic eruptions vastly change the landscape around them, and the flowing of magma gives the Earth its spin. You could have some geological hoo-hah keeping the planet spinning in a stable orbit, though I'm unsure of how that would help with seasons. Then again, if your planet is mostly desert, then seasons won't really matter because the temperature and weather would already be changing very rapidly.
Thank-you ^^ And I apologize for being snippy in return, that was very unnecessary of me.
I hadn't thought of volcanic activity, that sounds like a very interesting concept! I'll have to research it further. And yeah, the seasons are basically "hot-and-dry" and "hot-with-scattered-showers", so it's not terribly important to make them noticeable, just regular. I appreciate your help!
wait new idea.
so what you said about a moonless planet seemed pretty hellish, so what if some terraforming scouts are looking for a new planet for humans to live on, and they crash on a planet like that
1 "Where are we?"
2 "Oh no. oh nonono."
1 "What is it?"
2 "We crashed on the least habitable planet you can live on!"
1 "Wait, if you can live on it, doesn't that mean it's habitable?"
2 "Shut up I'm panicking on the inside."
1 "Okay, I'll go see what we can salvage from the crash. bye."
Heh, that made me laugh XD I can definitely see something like that going down, yeah.
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