Life As We Knew It Book Report

WHY “LIFE AS WE KNEW IT” IS NOT PLAUSIBLE

Introduction
The events in the book “Life as We Knew it” by Susan Beth Pfeffer, in my opinion, are questionable at best. Along with the grammatical errors scattered everywhere, I believe that the book lacks an actual scientific basis. Here I will explain my reasoning on why the events in “Life as we knew it” are not plausible through the human interactions, astronomy, and physics.

Human Error

Evacuation

To start off, there was no evacuation of the population of the coastal states. As I will explain later, because of the speed of the moons descent into earth, there would be enough time for the incident to reach the news and alert the local citizens to evacuate the area and since the majority of people were watching the news, it wouldn’t be long until people started packing their bags. Especially in New York, with so much concentration and being a major economic spot for the US, it would be one of the prioritized areas to evacuate. As said in the book, the moon caused what can be described as a tsunami (which I will explain later), in this case the warning would have been sent out several hours before the waves would actually started hitting.
Another problem concerning

evacuation is the lack of the law enforcement there to help people where ever necessary. According to the evacuation plan for tsunamis, the local authorities would be alerted to help the citizens evacuate from their homes and get people either inland or 25 miles above sea level as with the influx of water, the water table would rise exponentially. Especially in cities and towns on the coast and near the beach, the police and coast guard would help evacuate harbors, marinas, and off-shore and peninsula parts of the state like Long Island and Martha’s Vineyard. If this happened in the book, there would have been a significant increase of survivors from the disaster.

Wrong calculations

It is very hard to believe that every scientist in the world got their calculations wrong. As said in the book, the scientist focused on this meteor striking the moon miscalculated the density of the meteor resulting in the descent of the moon into earth. Scientist should be able to see the aforementioned meteor at least a few weeks in advance, and since they have been anticipating this event for quite some time, it would be one of the top priorities to prepare for the worst. Realistically, someone would have gotten perfected results on the density and predicted strength of impact from probes and had shared it with the rest of the scientific community. Ideally, the rest of the world would be informed and would prepare for the impact or maybe even plan to destroy the meteor. A lot of people would have been working to stop the worst from happening, preventing many casualties.
Astronomy

Asteroid belt

The meteor had to come from somewhere and before a meteor is, well a meteor, it is an asteroid most likely from the Kuiper belt. It can only be from or from beyond the Kuiper belt because it is highly unlikely for it to come from the asteroid belt between mars and Jupiter. The asteroids are significantly smaller and less dense then even our moon, about the size of a town if not smaller before becoming a meteorite. There would have to be a greater force such as a solar wind or a larger asteroid to work its way through the belt for an asteroid of its density and size. Though the largest asteroid, Ceres, is found in the Kuiper belt, an asteroid of its size, mass, and density would not even budge from the orbit. Lastly, there would be a very high chance the asteroid would just get caught in the sun’s gravitational field and become part of the Kuiper belt or the asteroid belt between mars and Jupiter. Though Eros would be an example of an asteroid orbiting closer to Earth’s orbit, it has not diverged from orbit in years.

Jovian Planets

Due to the evidence of the asteroid coming from or beyond the Kuiper belt, it is high unlikely it would even get past the asteroid belt and get caught in or crushed by one of the outer planet’s gravitational field. First off, the Jovian or outer planets, as most call them, aren’t called gas giants for nothing, these planets at the very least, which is Neptune, are four times larger than Earth and with that size comes with a strong gravitational pull. Jupiter, the largest of the bunch and could approximately hold 1,300 Earths inside of it, has the strongest magnetosphere at 16 to 54 times that of Earth, also under its belt are 53 confirmed moons and 14 provisional moons possibly adding up to 67 moons. It would not be surprising if instead of the asteroid getting past the asteroid belt, it would become another of Jupiter’s moons or just get crushed by its gravitation field.
Next is Saturn, this planet, the second largest in the solar system, has be known for its rings of dust, ice, and debris, most of that dust and debris was collected over time from comets and asteroids. Saturn also has a strong magnetosphere as it has 53 confirmed moons and 9 provisional moons potentially having 62 moons, almost as many as Jupiter. Again, there would be a very high chance that the asteroid would just get caught in or crushed by Saturn’s field and become part of the rings or a moon. Lastly the pair, Uranus and Neptune, these planets are around the same size so the aforementioned information could apply to both celestial bodies. Due to their rings and magnetosphere, the asteroid could suffer a similar fate as to Jupiter and Saturn.

Physics

Gravity and Force

Earth’s gravity plays a huge role in how this type of event would occur, in particular the speed of the descent of the moon.

According to Canadian researchers, hypothetically, it would take approximately 1,591,500,000 pounds of force to move the moon which I have calculated from the average mass, velocity, and time of impact of the asteroid that struck the moon, this asteroid would not have enough force. Once the asteroid hit the moon even with its apparent density it would not move the moon, it would only cause another crater on the moon’s surface, possibly deep or wide crater though. For the sake of this essay, let’s say it did move the moon and started the descent, the effects would not show on earth for a while, which brings me to my last

topic.

The Moon’s effects

To make things clear from the start, the moon controls the tides, not the weather or the waves. In the book, the effects of the impact on the moon show as soon as it strikes, this would not be probable as the moon only just started its very slow descent into Earth. In the book it says that it causes what can be described as a Tsunami, but tsunamis are caused by underwater earthquakes not the moon. Before you ask, “But what about the tides and tidal waves?”, again the effects would not show so early. Next, seeing how it is around 2005 in the book, and it’s only spring the ice caps wouldn’t be much of a factor as if it were today. Lastly, in the book the moon caused weather phenomena such as intense thunderstorms, events such as this have nothing to do with the moon, it is caused by air pressure and temperature, also since the Earth is still rotating with the inclusion that the clouds dissipate, people should also be able to see the sun from Earth.

Conclusion

In conclusion, and asteroid crashing into the moon causing its descent is highly improbable due to Physics, Astronomy, and Human Interaction. Realistically, if these events happened to have come to fruition, the governments of the world would have been working together as much as they could to push back the moon back into place. In closing, I would give this book 2.5/5 for the error and logic but also for creativity and the characters