We’ve all seen it. 
The beautiful fantasy landscape of some distant planet sporting several large moons. But…is it feasible in reality?
Recently I was watching yet another Discovery channel show about what the Earth would be like without the moon. The answer was scary and pretty desolate. The reason is because of the tides and how they “stir up” our oceans.
So, knowing that the rotation of the moon around the planet causes a rise in tides on the moon side and on the exact opposite side, what happens when you have two or more moons? What would happen if they had different orbital rates (ie 24 hours and 38.2 hours?). How would the wave paths conflict? Would life still be possible, or just wildly different than what we know?
This is a pretty important question while we are searching for life on other planets. Anything that would have a profound effect on the life cycle of a planet has to be considered.
On an aside, these fantasy images often show the moons as very large. Obviously some of that can be achieved via atmospheric lensing (ever see the moon low on the horizon looking as big as a basketball and red as a pumpkin?), but how close can a moon be before gravity pulls it into said planet?
