Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
Yes and no. While it certainly has taken hits from meteors that otherwise might have hit Earth, the reason for the buildup of craters is that there is no weather or tectonic processes renewing the surface to erase them. The Moon's lack of atmosphere would also presumably mean no slowing effect or "burning up" of the descending meteor, so it gets hit harder and by bigger rocks.

It's only going to shield a very small fraction of the Earth at any one time – think about its size relative to the whole sky! – and I'm not sure exactly how much influence its gravity has but it's most likely just going to bend trajectories a bit, not "suck things in" and pull them off course.
I mean, there are also lunar meteorites from collisions with the right side of the moon. The low gravity and no atmosphere cause them to fall to earth, where they are only preserved in deserts, mostly the Sahara and Antarctica.

It does shield the Earth though, at least partially, and that is the direct reason for why it has craters. No meteorites hitting it = no craters. It's not just because its surface doesn't wear down, much. That's why we can still observe them, though.

In a magical world with a magical moon with a magical atmosphere created by magical people with magical creations being magical all the time, I'm sure they could magically have it perform better shielding than our mundane moon.

Anyway, it's something that's very fun to think about, especially when theories like this exist. Lunar Cataclysm