show_no_mercy

Supposedly, the prophet Mohammad split the moon in half and then rejoined the two halves. Then there is supposed to be scientific evidence for this split. Anyone want to debunk/corroborate this claim?

LeeBuhrul

Sure... Moses parts the red sea so mr. Show Off Mohammad has to up it...
:banghead:
what's left for the next prophet?

oh yeah that's right... END THE WORLD!
:Cheeky:

Still, in the interest of the best spirit of this forum, someone with the appropriate background please step in and explain where we (and earth itself) would be if the moon had been split anywhere near the time Mohammad was around...

Weltall

Kamui?

First I've heard of this 'layer', anyone have objective evidence for its existence? I'm not entirely inclined to trust 'I saw A Scientist (credentials unknown) say it on a BBC programme' as evidence without verification.

Hyndis

Well, there's a major problem in that the laws of physics do not permit such a thing. In order to cut such a massive object in half, you'd need a really, really, really big frick'n laser to do it. Or a similar such thing. And even if you could saw through the object, gravity would attract the two halves together.

Furthermore, you'd see a huge and very obvious fault between the two halves, where terrain doesn't quite match up and such. Look at a rubber ball. Most are made in two halves, and then combined later one once the rubber has cooled. You'll see a seam where they combined it.

In the case of such a massive upheaval on the moon, you'd see something simlar, where the terrain is all funky in a single ring around the thing. That would be kind of hard to miss.

Shadow Wraith

An X/1999 reference! Alright! CLAMP iz teh mad rulerz of manga! I'm picking up vol. 16 tomorrow (it just came out).

Oh, yeah. The moon getting split in twain thingy. Well, if by any chance such a miraculous happening (and it would have to be a miracle, since there's no way naturual causes could accomplish such a feat) were to have occurred in the past and left traces, we should notice something in the topography, stratigraphy, and interior structure of the moon that would indicate that it was sliced clean in two from crust to core. Of course, that depends on how clean the cut was. How big of a "scar" do are the claimants expecting? Could the satellite-cleaving fissure be too small to even measure? If so, then we can just dismiss the claim as unverifiable. Is there perhaps any other way we can test this claim? Of course, the moon's topography is well known due to detalied satellite mapping (how detailed I'm not sure), and we have a good idea of its interior. If there was some evidence that it was split completely in two with noticeable scarring, we would have noticed it by now (like the fissure on Mimas that resulted from the nearly moon-shattering impact that created Herschel).

In any case, this is a ridiculous claim coming from another group of religious nuts. Given fundamentalism's track record (various creationisms, faith healing, etc.) one can simply toss this claim out into the garbage with the rest of this. Scientists have better things to do (like real research) with their time than debunk every dumbass claim that fundies can come up with. Then again, if they don't, the fundies will likely increase their flock of sheep even further. Catch 22 if you ask me.

BioBeing

If the moon could be miraculously split in two, it could surely be re-joined just as miraculously without any sign of a split.

I would look to more earthly sources for verification. When was this supposed to have happened? Did any of the then extant cultures (other than the Muslims) document such a splitting as observed from Earth? Or were they magically blinded so as not to see it?

Thundun

That makes no sense at all.

Hyndis

The Chinese took especially detailed records. They recorded a supernova in 1054AD, and they recorded the event with enough precision that once the telescope was invented, we got to peek at a star that had just died about 600 years earlier.

And in the timescale of stars, 600 years is nothing.

Wouldn't the Chinese have noticed something as dramatic as the moon splitting in two? You wouldn't even need a telescope to see that!

Anglican

Not if it was a half moon anyway.

Dust

Maybe that was the guys trick..."Watch everyone...I'll make the moon split in half...and two weeks from now...I'll put it back together. Don't look up in the sky between that time or you'll turn into a pile of shi...er...salt".