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Q&A

Would a sun-blocking asteriod field be created if something big was to smash into the moon?

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I'm wondering if it is plausible that a large asteroid (interstellar in origin? Or, perhaps launched from the Kuiper Belt by something big with a lot of gravity?) would be able to smash into Luna and tear out significantly large amounts of rocks from it, enough to form a field of rocks orbiting the earth that is dense enough to cool the planet significantly for a few hundred years.

While I realize that an apocalyptic amount of debris would fall to earth from such an event, would it at all be possible for humanity to survive such an event though they would have to do without civilization of course. How much would this depend on the angle it hit the moon at?

How long would it take for the field of rocks to decay enough and fall to earth, to such a degree that the sky becomes mostly clear? Decades? Centuries?

What would happen to the orbit of what remains of the moon? Would it have to leave the Earths Sphere of Influence or could it simply become more eccentric? Or would it not have much effect at all?

Thank you in advance for any responses to my questions!

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This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/114539. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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