All Questions
Tagged with earth orbital-motion
104
questions
89
votes
9
answers
220k
views
Why doesn't the Moon fall onto the Earth?
Why doesn't the Moon fall onto the Earth? For that matter, why doesn't anything rotating a larger body ever fall onto the larger body?
- 1,033
39
votes
7
answers
14k
views
Why don't we feel the subtle speed change of Earth's elliptical orbit?
Earth's orbit is a slight ellipse, so to conserve momentum its speed increases when it is closest to the Sun. If the speed changes there is an acceleration. If there is an acceleration there is a ...
- 2,878
28
votes
5
answers
11k
views
Build a ring around Earth, then remove the supports
What would happen if we decided to build a giant ring that managed to wrap around the whole world, end to end that was supported with pillars all along the ring and then the supports all suddenly ...
- 429
21
votes
7
answers
5k
views
Finding how much time it takes for a complete Earth revolution around the Sun
Long story short, my brother made a joke about how stupid it is to celebrate the Earth making one "trip" around the Sun: New Year's Eve.
So I got curious and was wondering: how could the first ...
- 320
16
votes
6
answers
5k
views
If another planet was opposite Earth, would we be able to observe it?
Imagine another Earth-sized planet, in the exact same orbit as Earth, but 180 degrees out-of-phase. In this arrangement, at all times, you would be able to draw a single straight line through space ...
- 461
15
votes
4
answers
10k
views
Can the Earth leave orbit if the population of humans and other live forms increases?
I don't know a lot about physics, but this seemed like the correct place to ask my question. I apologize in advance if it is a ridiculous one.
It's actually a two part question:
If the population of ...
15
votes
3
answers
3k
views
Are there any exact data about Earth's orbit?
Wikipedia says that the Earth's orbit's axis is $a=149\ 598\ 000\ \mathrm{km}$ and its eccentricity is $e=0.016\ 7086$, but if we use these values to find distance at aphelion and perihelion we get
$...
15
votes
4
answers
3k
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What would happen if the Earth was in a polar orbit around the sun?
This is a question that has been bugging me for a while now, I was wondering about the effects on the Earth if it was in different orbital situations to what it is now, and one of those was what would ...
- 161
15
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Mars just collided with Earth! A question of eccentricity
One of the standard theories behind the formation of our Moon is the giant impact hypothesis, according to which Earth was struck by a Mars-sized body (about $10\%$ the mass of Earth) early in its ...
user10851
12
votes
4
answers
3k
views
If we were on the Moon would Earth appear to be in motion or at rest?
If we were on the moon would earth appear stationary or would it appear to move. I think it must be stationary because moon is in sychronous rotation with earth.
- 644
10
votes
1
answer
15k
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How to determine satellite position in J2000 from latitude, longitude and distance from Earth?
Due to my task of writing orbit prediction routines I am trying to understand the reference frames better and how to use them ( particularly for Earth orbits ).
I think I get the idea of what ECI (...
- 235
10
votes
3
answers
4k
views
How is it that the Earth's atmosphere is not “blown away”?
The Earth moves at a high rate of speed around the Sun, and the solar system is moving quickly around the Milky Way. How is it that the Earth's atmosphere is not “blown away”?
- 109
9
votes
2
answers
5k
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Is the Earth the center of the Solar System? [duplicate]
Alright guys, so I attracted you with the title. Now, to preface the question, I am fully aware of the work of Copernicus, as well as the concepts of Heliocentrism and Barycentric Coordinates. I have ...
- 263
7
votes
3
answers
179
views
How to measure the effects of the orbit around the Sun?
It is well know that we can measure the spinning of the Earth with a Foucault pendulum.
But, is there a similar experiment for the orbit of the Earth around the Sun? I would like to know if we could ...
- 12.5k
5
votes
4
answers
8k
views
Could we make a trebuchet that could launch objects to a stable orbit?
Inspired by this xkcd, which calculated the energy requirements for accelerating individual humans to escape velocity (regardless of consideration for what that would do to your organs), I am ...
- 3,241