Do We Really Need the Moon? Page #2

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And Earth Mk II was a place on which life could begin.

The collision released huge quantities of metal from the Earth's core,

one particular metal that would help change the atmosphere of our planet.

I'm talking about iron.

Iron is incredibly reactive.

Leave some out in the garden and it will rust.

It also combines with other chemicals to release gases

such as methane, carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

Today we see these gases as toxic and rather unpleasant.

But in the early Earth this was the very stuff of life.

In the 1950s, American chemist Stanley Miller did a classic experiment.

He took a cocktail of these gases and tried to simulate conditions on the early Earth,

adding electricity to mimic the power of lightning.

And what emerged, to everyone's surprise, was a flask of slime,

which turned out to be full of amino acids.

Like iron, amino acids are essential for life.

They are the raw material from which proteins are made.

And this great chemist was able to produce them using gases that were available on the early Earth.

The collision that formed the Moon helped set the scene for life to begin.

But there was still a way to go.

Life didn't start immediately after the collision.

It took up to 700 million years for the first living cells to emerge.

During this time, the Earth was cooling down.

It formed a rocky surface, water vapour condensed to form oceans.

And these oceans were being tugged by the Moon.

They were becoming tidal.

According to the latest theory from one leading chemist,

these early tides may have been the trigger

that kick-started life into action.

This seems like a very odd place to do some chemistry.

- Why are we here?

- On the beach?

To investigate the effect of tides on chemistry taking place on the very early Earth, billions of years ago.

'Professor John Sutherland believes the ebb and flow of the tides

'may have played a crucial role in the origin of life.

'And he's going to show me how it could have happened.

We have to do some chemistry here.

'He's mixing up the sort of basic chemicals found in the first oceans and adding water.

'He's reproducing a tidal pool in his flask.'

And that's your starting tidal pool at high tide.

Then the tide goes out, the sun shines on the pool and starts drying it out.

And rather than wait for that to happen here, because that would take

a long time, I'm going to speed it up by using a burner here.

So what are we trying to mimic?

We're trying to mimic here the,...

the power of the Moon in chemistry on Earth.

So the Moon is responsible for the tides, the tides are filling these

ponds up and then, when the tide goes down, the sun shines, dries it up.

It's an inexorable process of wetting and drying and warming

and that is driven by the Moon.

Having created a soup of chemicals, washed and dried them, there's still one thing missing.

I'm going to now transfer this into

this other reaction vessel.

He exposes the chemicals to a blue lamp

that radiates ultraviolet energy

simulating the sun's light shining on the early Earth.

And as a result, he's changing the very structure of the chemicals,...

..creating, as if from nothing, elements of RNA, ribonucleic acid,

an essential component of all living cells.

So we are, in this setup, making some of the building blocks of life?

Yes! Just from simple tidal conditions and simple organic chemistry.

- But it's all driven by the Moon?

- It's ultimately all driven by the Moon.

Life on Earth driven by the Moon.

life probably began in what he called a "warm little pond".

At the time, it was mere speculation.

But now we think he might be right.

These tidal pools represent Darwin's warm little ponds.

Primordial chemistry labs where the raw materials of life can come together.

And all beautifully orchestrated by the tidal power of the Moon.

Once the first creatures had emerged in the oceans 3.8 billion years ago,

evolution was in full flow.

And ever since, the Moon has continued watching over us,...

..casting a protective veil.

When I was a teenager, I wanted a telescope so badly,

mainly to look at the Moon, but I couldn't afford a decent one,

so at the age of 14, I went to an evening class and I learnt to make my own.

Now my telescope worked on a similar principle to this one, using a mirror to reflect the light.

It took months to grind and polish those mirrors, but it was so worth it.

I remember the first night when I pointed the telescope up at the Moon

and I could see the craters in amazing detail.

And the first thing you notice is you're always looking at the same craters.

This is because the Moon spins very slowly, one rotation every 29 days,

and that's exactly the same speed as the Moon orbits the Earth.

So as the Moon travels around us, it's always showing us the same face.

So we never see the far side, or the so-called dark side of the Moon.

If we could, we'd see that it's riddled with craters.

In fact, we now know there are more craters on the far side of the Moon than the nearside

which is bit of a relief

because each of them was formed by an asteroid impact

that could otherwise have crashed into Earth

and stopped life in its tracks.

The Moon, which helped start life, may also have preserved it.

Our guardian angel.

This idea, that the Moon looks after us, is ancient.

and placed them in a great circle.

They didn't have metal tools,

let alone cranes.

It was a remarkable thing to do.

It's been suggested that they were building a sort of observatory

to mark a rare lunar event.

Every 18.5 years, the Moon drops in the sky for a couple of weeks, and barely makes it above the horizon.

It's known as a lunar standstill and it last happened in 2006, and it won't happen again until 2024.

Bizarrely, the people who built Callanish

probably knew about the lunar standstill

and they aligned their stones to witness it.

From this angle you can see the Moon rise above those hills over there and drop between those stones.

It must look spectacular.

To line up the stones accurately,

they could only check their position every 18.5 years,

at the next lunar standstill.

It seems incredibly complex, so why do it?

Across the ancient world, people revered the Moon

and made up stories about the mysterious power of this disc in the night sky.

Some stories have survived the test of time.

Think of the classic werewolf movie.

MAN SHOUTS, CREATURE GROWLS

It's all about the strange, terrible magic of the Moon.

Even today, it is often said that the full Moon casts a spell over us.

# I see a bad moon rising... #

It sends us a bit crazy.

It's Friday night and I'm out with the police.

It's always a busy time with people partying in clubs and bars.

But tonight is also a full Moon.

Does that make any difference?

Over the years, there have been many studies.

Some claim to show a link between the crime rate and a full Moon.

They suggest that people become wilder and more violent when the Moon is full.

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