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What would happen if the earth started to accelerate?

S

Scrapster

Diamond Member
How would gravity be affected? What would we feel? Would civilization be destroyed? And what about if the earth started to decelerate (if there is such a thing). How would we be affected?
 
Well, if it did we'd be thrown out of our regular orbit around the sun. We'd probably go drifting off into space somewhere. Without the sun, we'd be in darkness a lot longer. Everything would get colder. (If you're talking about the earth accelerating in the orbit around the sun - I'm too tired to think about what would happen if our rotation sped up)
 
The earth spins at a constant rate on its axis. I want to know what would happen if it started to speed up or slow down..
 


<< I want to know what would happen if it started to speed up or slow down.. >>



Just imagine you're on a Merry-Go-Round 🙂
 
I like asking what would happen if it stopped on a dime.
What would happen then.
 


<< I like asking what would happen if it stopped on a dime.
What would happen then. >>



Depends on what kind of sneakers are being used I guess 😛
 
Hmmm, if it sped up in phases... I guess as a whole, the human race would be physically stronger... kick ass, but uhm dunno what else would happen. Wouldn't our planet be attracted to the next planet even more? Sort of like when you pass another car really quick, the vacuum affect..
 


<< Hmmm, if it sped up in phases... I guess as a whole, the human race would be physically stronger... kick ass, but uhm dunno what else would happen. >>



lol... 😀

 
The earth is slowing down due to tidal drag. Don't worry about it though in your lifetime. What would happen is that the length of the day would change. If it stopped, as in one revolution per year, half would be in sun and the other half in darkness. If it sped up there would be an increased equatorial bulge all the way up to flying apart. You wouldn't have to work as long, but you'd have to go more often.
 


<< The earth is slowing down due to tidal drag. Don't worry about it though in your lifetime. What would happen is that the length of the day would change. If it stopped, as in one revolution per year, half would be in sun and the other half in darkness. If it sped up there would be an increased equatorial bulge all the way up to flying apart. You wouldn't have to work as long, but you'd have to go more often. >>

haha, btw centripetal and centrifugal forces follow opposing directions
 
It would start to fly apart when the centripital force exceded the force of gravity, i.e. if it began to spin fast enough.
 
AFAIK Moombeam hit it right on the head. IF the earth speeds up shorter days, more equatorial bulge. I am not sure how fast it would have to go to cause and significant damage or perhaps fly apart, pretty fast for that.

If is slowed, days would be longer, if it locked in like the moon it would destroy life as we know it.

The earths rotation speed has nothing to do with gravity, gravity depends only on Mass.

If the orbital velocity were to increase we would move to a closer orbit, it would not have to be a huge change (1-5%???) for the effects to be noticed.

Like wise if the orbital velocity decreased we would move further form the sun, agian small changes as above would be noticed.

Another interesting point of speculation would be what would happen if the earth lost its tilt? Seasons would be no more. It may also have serious effects on the polar regions, which would no longer have the long day/night exterems. Not sure right off all of the effects, but we may loose the polar Ice caps, If Antartica and Greenland melt it would raise the water level, all sea level cities would be in a big hurt. That leaves Denver in the US as about the major surviving city.
 


<< What would happen if the earth started to accelerate? >>

It would probably go faster. You could be wrong though.
 
RossGr, how do you define orbital velocity? It seems to me that if the velocity we move in in orbit were to increase, we would move into a more distant orbit. A force that increased our velocity would have to be applied tangentially to our orbit with a resultant vector pointing away from the sun. It seems that if you wanted to move closer to the sun you would have to loose mass to gain velocity.
 
Faster in, Slower out, thats the strangness of orbital mechanics.

space station location site Select the
Jtrack-3d tab on this page, you will see a 3d image of many of the satilites in orbit. Click on view-> Satilite position to see the velocity of the selected satilite. There is a cloud of them in the low earth orbit click one, all have a velocity of about 7Km/sec. Further out is the ring of geocentric communication satilites, select one of these, they have a velocity of 3km/s.

Orbital Velocity is a vector quanity so it includes both the tangential and radial components, This is the orbital velocity I speak of. Clearly from the jtrack page higher orbital velocity means lower orbit. Strange, huh?
 
I'll look later when I'm more awake. But take a comet. It has a higher velocity close to the sun. But what would happen if you removed mass from one as if by magic. Wouldn't it fall closer to the sun and increase velocity. All the orbits we see are in balance for mass and velocity. If an object in orbit were to acquire additional velocity with no mass change, wouldn't it have to move away from the sun to reachieve balance, just as a comet is thrown coasting away from the sun via its approach velocity and would be thrown farther still if its approach were more rapid?
 
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