>>12823528Yes, for two direct reasons and one indirect reason.
Firstly, a moon of some kind is necessary for tides, which are very important to life on Earth.
Secondly a relatively large Moon is even better because the stronger the tides the more internal heat is generated on the planet. In the example of our solar system the other two possibilities for life bearing worlds have fucked up, mostly non-functioning cores and neither has a large Moon to generate tides that would have kept their cores more active.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, the moon is indirectly a product of a collision with another celestial body that dumped a fuck ton of iron into the Earth's core, again helping with that internal heating and stability.
The last thing I'll mention although it's highly debateable how important it is, the Moon took a lot asteroid hits for Earth, acting almost as a kind of shield during the late heavy bombardment.
I suspect that a large Moon (and by extension a violent merger of two proto-planets with lots of iron in them) is probably the only stable configuration for a life bearing world in the stable water zone of a star. Other types of life bearing worlds may be out there but Earth like worlds almost certainly need a large Moon to be fit for complex life.
