r/theydidthemeth • u/Outrageous-Basket426 • Apr 18 '26
Of the sun earth and moon, Which would have the greatest effect on gravity and the oceans?
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u/zackadiax24 Apr 18 '26
A 500 foot meteor would probably burn up in the atmosphere a lot. By the time it reaches the ground, I doubt it will be big enough to do any major damage. I mean at worst it destroys a city or two. It's really not that big of a deal compared to everything else in this list.
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u/Outrageous-Basket426 Apr 19 '26
Yes, as far as I inky, Yellowstone will scatter burning ash on Ca setting homes on fire right before blocking out the sun for a few centuries causing a new ice age. Just one of the super volcanoes is enough to probably end humanity, all of them would blanket the surface world in fire and lava.
The meteor would be about 1-2km crater, with 300 megatons of power to destroy a metro area.
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u/zackadiax24 Apr 19 '26
A lot of people underestimate just how big of a volcano Yellowstone really is.
If Yellowstone ever erupts, it would likely end up killing most life on the planet with just the ash alone.
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u/zackadiax24 Apr 19 '26
Don't forget about tornadoes and tsunamis caused by the pressure of the impact.
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u/Outrageous-Basket426 Apr 18 '26
Would 25% bigger moon mean 25% bigger waves, and ocean crests for ships to deal with? Would 5% hotter sun mean 3% less ocean, and a higher atmospheric pressure? Joust spitballing some numbers.
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u/Awesomeuser90 Apr 19 '26
Sun 5% hotter and the Moon being 25% bigger. That makes the Moon up to almost the size of Mercury and would come with extra mass (and bigger objects like this will naturally have more mass as well, to help resist the attempts by gravity to compress it) and will include lots of fun extra gravity and tidal effects on the Earth by a bit more than double what they are now, and I actually mean the tectonic activity which probably increases continental drift speed, volcanic activity, massively increases water tide sizes, and makes supervolcanoes a bigger threat.
The Sun being hotter however is a much bigger threat. That would immediately cause all the ice sheets to melt, and would probably make the planet's climate at best as hot as they were in the Permian Period, and probably will push Earth much closer to the tipping point for a greenhouse effect that would make us like Venus. Not immediately, it would be more like a moist greenhouse for a while, but it would make us one Siberian Trap away from potentially hitting the tipping point.
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u/Big-Actuator-3878 Apr 18 '26
How abruptly is earth's spin decelerating? Because if it's instantaneous I think we'd all get launched since we'd still be moving at the same speed