What Would Happen If Earth Had Two Moons?

A while back, I wrote an article on what earth would be like if we didn't have our moon. 

Well, what if earth had not one, but two moons? 

While some planets like Jupiter and Mars have more than one moon, our planet Earth has just one. But what if Earth, like Jupiter, had more than one moon? How would our planet be different? It's a mind boggling concept to think about. 

Here are a few likely changes that would happen to our earth if it had two (or more!) moons. 

Ocean Tides Would be Noticeably Larger

Since the moon plays a huge role in earth's ocean tides, more than one moon would make the tides noticeably different. 

First off, depending on how strong a second moon's gravitational pull is, our ocean's tides would be immensely larger. With a second moon, tides could be at least eight times higher and there would be a several thousand feet difference between low and high tide. 

This would cause flooding and make living on the shore near impossible. 

There Would Be More Moonlight

If you enjoy sitting outside on a warm summer night with just the moon as your light, just think what the light of two moons would be like? 

Moonlight would be significantly brighter. We might not even need street posts or flash lights to see. The light of two moons would be five times brighter than that of one moon. Of course, it wouldn't be as bright as our sun, but two moons would still give off a noticeable amount of light. 

A brighter night would effect wildlife significantly as well. With more moonlight to see, prey animals would have to develop better means of camouflage. That in turn means that predator animals would need to develop other strategies of hunting and finding prey. 

There Would Also be More Eclipses

Remember the recent solar eclipse that went across northern Mexico, the U.S. and Canada? It was a rare phenomena and an amazing spectacle. It seemed that everyone was buying a pair of solar glasses in hopes of seeing the solar eclipse. 

What if such a solar eclipse wasn't that rare, but happened once a month instead? 

With two moons, there would be more of a chance for an eclipse to happen. An eclipse would happen once a month rather than two to five times a year for solar and one to two times a year for lunar.

Lunar Cycles Would be Much Shorter

An additional moon would greatly affect our calendar so much that our calendar system would become irrelevant. The second moon would go through it's phases as usual except for one thing. It would be significantly faster and take approximately 10 days to complete. It would happen so fast that hypothetically, we would be able to see the moon change different phases in just the course of one day. 

We would have to change our whole calendar system such as adapting it into partial months. 

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There are a few important factors that would need to be considered to determine just how much an extra moon (or more) would effect our planet. Important determining factors include the size of the moon and how close in proximity it is from the earth and the strength of it's gravitational pull.

Unlike a few other planets, we just have one moon and that makes our planet even more unique.

Sources:

https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/what-if-earth-had-two-moons

https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/5-ways-life-on-earth-would-be-different-if-we-had-two-moons