If We Had No Moon

Narrated by Patrick Stewart, this is a pretty interesting doc about -- you guessed it -- what would happen if we had no moon. Turns out, the little guy is important! Decent visuals and lots of interesting tidbits of information illustrate the theories about how the moon itself formed (probably from a rogue planet called "Orpheus" which collided with Earth many millions of years ago) as well as what the effects of the moon on earth is. The short answer is that without the moon, Earth would be a much more unstable place, and life most likely would not have developed, at least not in the same manner as it did.

Another interesting implication: having a moon as big as ours could be relatively uncommon in the rest of the galaxy. Does this make it even harder for life to evolve elsewhere?