Mario Moreno/Alamy
Without moonlight (i.e. if our moon was non-reflective or black, but with exactly the same gravity and motion), would life on Earth be any different?
Hillary Shaw
Newport, Shropshire, UK
Human culture would be very different without moonlight. Ancient stargazers, with no artificial light to drown out the stars, would see a black void crossing the sky. Perhaps this would lead to legends of an evil sky demon, similar to that described in Isaac Asimov’s 1941 short story Nightfall, about a planet that experiences the darkness of night for the first time.
The biggest differences would be in the Islamic…
