May 18th, 2041

In an event that will later be referred to as the Sundering, the moon was destroyed in a violent fashion. Analysis over the years that would follow would model the event as an impact with a relatively small object, roughly 100 kilometers in diameter, moving at near the speed of light and striking the moon at its southern pole. Such an impact drove the majority of the mass in a direction perpendicular to the motion of the Earth and the plane of the ecliptic. Still, the gravitational pull of the Earth would draw a non-trivial amount of matter towards it.

A series of minor and major impacts occurred between lunar fragments and the Earth, with the greatest density of events occurring for roughly 3 months following the Sundering. Three impacts in particular, all striking the Northern Hemisphere, were categorized as extinction level events.