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What If the Moon Had Never Formed?

(Image credit: Karl Tate / Life's Little Mysteries)

During the new DC Comics Universe series "Flashpoint," in which a time-traveling supervillain alters the past to warp the present, Life's Little Mysteries presents a 10-part series that examines what would happen if a major event in the history of the universe had gone just slightly different.

Part 6: What if ... the moon had never formed?

Scientists think material gouged out by a titanic collision between the freshly formed Earth and a Mars-size celestial body some 4.5 billion years ago coalesced to form the moon .

Life would be: Migratory and on shorter day-night cycles, if existent at all. Huge tides generated by the moon – which orbited much closer to Earth when it formed – washed the chemical building blocks for life from land into the oceans and helped "stir up the primordial soup," said Neil Comins, a professor of physics at the University of Maine.


The absence of the moon would affect life in less profound ways, too: No moon might mean no space race, which probably means no Tempur-Pedic mattresses or freeze-dried ice cream.

Previously: What would life be like if the first animals to crawl out of the sea had six legs instead of four .

Next: What would life be like if Earth were twice as big?

Head to for complete Flashpoint coverage.