Our planet is unique because it has an exceptionally large satellite : the Moon. In fact, we form a double planetary system, something absolutely anomalous among the planets of the Solar System. Until its birth it was anomalous: our satellite was born when our planet was in its infancy and after the impact of an object larger than Mars.
If there were no Moon, the eclipses would disappear and the nights would be much darker. The tides would also be different: in fact, they would be smaller, about a third of what they are now. Quite the opposite to the time when the Moon was formed: since it was closer to Earth, the tides reached 9 meters!
But the most interesting thing would be what would happen to our own planet. We are not aware of the role our (misnamed) ‘satellite’ plays in the stability of the Earth’s movements . On the one hand, the presence of the Moon slows the Earth’s rotation , albeit in a very, very small way: on the order of a few microseconds per year. Of course, after the 5,000 million years that our planet has been circling the Sun, it means a good peak. In fact, without the Moon the day would not last 24 hours but 6 to 8 hours!
And not only that. Without it the orientation of the Earth’s axis would not remain stable and would experience chaotic variations’ over time. That we are enjoying a regular succession of seasons over millions of years is thanks to the Moon . Mars, for example, has two tiny moons and its axis of rotation has changed 60º in the last 10 million years (for comparison, the Earth’s axis oscillates only 1.5º every 41,000 years). The climatological consequences of a chaotic variation of the axis of rotation would make it very difficult for life to evolve as it has on the planet.
