A major university professor has suggested a pretty extreme option against alleviating extreme weather on Earth – nuking the Moon. Is he crazy, or is the idea crazy enough to work?
Could nuking the moon cure extreme weather on Earth?
Blow up the Moon? It’s more than a plot from the Austin Powers’ movie The Spy Who Shagged Me, truth is often stranger than fiction, and a university professor suggests nuking the Moon to alleviate extreme weather
In the movie The Spy Who Shagged Me, the President and the cabinet are discussing their options against Doctor Evil.
Commander Gilmour: “Sir. Are you suggesting that we blow up the Moon?”
The President: “Would you miss it?”
A professor from a major university wasn’t joking around when he suggested that nuking the Moon could be a viable remedy to eliminating the problems that Earth suffers from extreme weather.
Nuking the Moon: Crazy or crazy enough to work?
Iowa Slate mathematics professor Alexander Abian, 68, worked out a study that proposed using nukes to destroy the Moon to stabilize the Earth’s wind patterns and temperature, People reports.
As a side note, the word Luna is the Latin word for Moon (as well as in several languages with Latin roots, such as Spanish and Italian). It’s also the root of the word lunatic. But don’t write off Professor Abian as crazy yet. There is a method behind what others might see as his madness.
Benefits of nuking the Moon
Abian’s proposal for destroying the Moon was initially published in the campus newspaper of Iowa State.
In his proposal, Abian postulated that eliminating the Moon would remove the gravitational tug it places on Earth which causes it to tilt. The gravitational pull of the Moon affects ocean currents and tides. With this force released, Earth’s temperature and wind patterns would stabilize, according to Abian’s theory.
Abian thought that without the Moon, the Earth wouldn’t wobble, wouldn’t tilt, and would eliminate seasons, equalizing weather, IFL science reported.
Abian suggested drilling deep holes in the Moon to implant atomic explosives, which would be detonated by remote control from Earth.
Critics call idea bonkers
Several professors immediately criticized the absurdity of the idea.
“How does he propose to change the earth’s angle of rotation without creating massive earthquakes?” asked David Taylor, assistant chairman of the physics and astronomy department at Northwestern University. “He would destroy civilization, but we’d have great weather.”
Of course, Abian didn’t account for the possibility of a massive chunk of the Moon slamming into Earth and eliminating all life.
Abian responded to his critics by equating himself with one of the greatest astronomers of all time.
“I am raising the petulant finger of defiance to the solar organization for the first time in 5 billion years,” Abian declared. “Those critics who say ‘Dismiss Abian’s ideas are very close to those who dismissed Galileo.”
