Nancy Marie Brown wrote:...Perhaps, but Olsson is not looking for just any dust. His is interplanetary dust, zodiacal dust, the dust that sifts slowly down through our atmosphere some 25,000 years after it rubs off an asteroid bumped by a pebble-sized rock out beyond the orbit of Mars. This dust accumulates on Earth today at the rate of 40,000 tons per year – an estimate based on the haul of a U2 airplane cruising the stratosphere. “Since it’s so small,” Olsson says, meaning a single mote of asteroid dust, “it comes in very slowly, compared, for instance, to a meteorite. It stays high in the stratosphere for quite a while. It never gets tremendous acceleration, so it never burns up.”
Ages and ages ago, when the asteroid belt was busier, the rocks larger and colliding more often, the influx could have been much, much higher. High enough, maybe, to have affected Earth’s climate, or to have introduced organic molecules or metals that helped or hindered early life. These are the questions that fascinate Olsson, an astronomer turned geoscientist (“I’ve been called a ‘physical-astro-bio-geo-chemist,’” he jokes). “Apart from sunlight,” he says, “this is the single most important interaction we have with space. This is the channel between the Solar System and Planet Earth.”
Fergus wrote:
Earth has a natural mass. Does the mass have anything to with how and where we orbit the sun, our rotation (day/night cycles).
Fergus wrote:Can we screw up earths orbit causing it to fly out of its orbit or stop rotating within its orbit, by lossing mass of the earth?
KingM wrote:Fergus wrote:Can we screw up earths orbit causing it to fly out of its orbit or stop rotating within its orbit, by lossing mass of the earth? I am just wondering if maybe we are killing our planet in an unobvious way. I can see how we are killing our planet ecologically speaking. But what about astronomically speaking. Anyone have any insight to this or does earth mass not play into the orbital equations.
This post is funny on so many levels. It illustrates a complete lack of understanding of multiple facets of science.
I am not a scientist. Maybe thats where my problem lies. Sorry, next lifetime I will be a scientist.KingM wrote:Fergus wrote:Can we screw up earths orbit causing it to fly out of its orbit or stop rotating within its orbit, by lossing mass of the earth? I am just wondering if maybe we are killing our planet in an unobvious way. I can see how we are killing our planet ecologically speaking. But what about astronomically speaking. Anyone have any insight to this or does earth mass not play into the orbital equations.
This post is funny on so many levels. It illustrates a complete lack of understanding of multiple facets of science.
I am not a scientist. Maybe thats where my problem lies. Sorry, next lifetime I will be a scientist.
Fergus wrote:I am not a scientist. Maybe thats where my problem lies. Sorry, next lifetime I will be a scientist.KingM wrote:Fergus wrote:Can we screw up earths orbit causing it to fly out of its orbit or stop rotating within its orbit, by lossing mass of the earth? I am just wondering if maybe we are killing our planet in an unobvious way. I can see how we are killing our planet ecologically speaking. But what about astronomically speaking. Anyone have any insight to this or does earth mass not play into the orbital equations.
This post is funny on so many levels. It illustrates a complete lack of understanding of multiple facets of science.
mekrob wrote:I am not a scientist. Maybe thats where my problem lies. Sorry, next lifetime I will be a scientist.
Since when did you have to be a scientist to know anything about science? Are you a petroleum engineer or geologist? No, then get the hell off of this site. Put that fork down if you aren't a farmer. Get off the computer if you can program. Live on the ground if you can't make a bed. Get out of your house if you didn't build it. Er, you get where I'm going with this.
And if you burn something, it doesn't turn into nothing. You just completely missed some of the most fundamental and easiest to understand principles of science.
I'm with KingM. I've left more intelligence in the toilet than there is in this topic.
Well then lets see you solve all the worlds problems mr smartypants
I dont mind admitting I have no expertise or even knowledge of a subject if I dont possess it. Does this make me less of a person?
I am sure I could have found the answer on my own, call me lazy, I deserve that
That wont offend you would it, if a lesser being then yourself actually slept in a bed that he could make.
But dont dare insult my intelligence.
mekrob wrote:Well then lets see you solve all the worlds problems mr smartypants
Do I have to show you? Or can I just do it when you're not looking? What time are you available?I dont mind admitting I have no expertise or even knowledge of a subject if I dont possess it. Does this make me less of a person?
Not at all, but..I am sure I could have found the answer on my own, call me lazy, I deserve that
doesn't really help you out much.That wont offend you would it, if a lesser being then yourself actually slept in a bed that he could make.
Not at all. Notice I said "if". Besides, you completely missed the point of that paragraph in which I was arguing your statement.But dont dare insult my intelligence.
I'm able to separate people from their actions pretty easily. If someone messes up once, it's not a complete reflection of that person. Therefore, I make sure to not direct my words at a person, but instead their actions, yours being this topic. I was attacking the intelligence in the topic, not in your head.
Fergus wrote:One thing I have wondered about. for a long time now since we started throwing satellites out into space. PO has added to my wondering. Anyone with basic or even advanced astronomical eperience have any idea about this?
Earth has a natural mass. Does the mass have anything to with how and where we orbit the sun, our rotation (day/night cycles). Now I am wondering if mass loss from the earth will have any effect on the earths orbit. Consider we throw millions of tons of marterial into space, making the earth lighter. We extract million, maybe billions of tons of oil and NG out of the ground and do nothing to replace this mass and its gone when we burn it.
Kinda like we are lighter now and get pulled towards the sun, or lose our orbital inertia and end up flying out of the solar system totally.
If you took all the material we have burnt to nothing. Ejected into space (off the earth physically and thus a mass loss) in satellites etc... would that have any impact on the earths ability to maintain its rotational orbit around the sun un-impacted?
Can we screw up earths orbit causing it to fly out of its orbit or stop rotating within its orbit, by lossing mass of the earth? I am just wondering if maybe we are killing our planet in an unobvious way. I can see how we are killing our planet ecologically speaking. But what about astronomically speaking. Anyone have any insight to this or does earth mass not play into the orbital equations.
Fergus wrote:One thing I have wondered about. for a long time now since we started throwing satellites out into space. PO has added to my wondering. Anyone with basic or even advanced astronomical eperience have any idea about this?
Fergus wrote:
Can we screw up earths orbit causing it to fly out of its orbit or stop rotating within its orbit, by lossing mass of the earth?
grabby wrote: {Edited by MQ-Do not post unnecessary text}So stop worrying about earth orbit and get back to what is going to finish us off.
Fergus wrote: Now I know that matter can not be destroyed. SO on earth, we mine steel and build a building. Transfer of mass, earth weighs the same. Now we mine steal build a rocket and launch a satellite. Several tons of earths mass are now OFF the planet and free floating in space. Loss of mass!!!!
MonteQuest wrote:It would take a incident of massive proportions to significantly alter the motion of the Earth. Even the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs hardly affected Earth itself, and it added mass.
Fergus wrote:One thing I have wondered about. for a long time now since we started throwing satellites out into space. PO has added to my wondering. Anyone with basic or even advanced astronomical eperience have any idea about this?
Earth has a natural mass. Does the mass have anything to with how and where we orbit the sun, our rotation (day/night cycles). Now I am wondering if mass loss from the earth will have any effect on the earths orbit. Consider we throw millions of tons of marterial into space, making the earth lighter. We extract million, maybe billions of tons of oil and NG out of the ground and do nothing to replace this mass and its gone when we burn it.
Kinda like we are lighter now and get pulled towards the sun, or lose our orbital inertia and end up flying out of the solar system totally.
If you took all the material we have burnt to nothing. Ejected into space (off the earth physically and thus a mass loss) in satellites etc... would that have any impact on the earths ability to maintain its rotational orbit around the sun un-impacted?
Can we screw up earths orbit causing it to fly out of its orbit or stop rotating within its orbit, by lossing mass of the earth? I am just wondering if maybe we are killing our planet in an unobvious way. I can see how we are killing our planet ecologically speaking. But what about astronomically speaking. Anyone have any insight to this or does earth mass not play into the orbital equations.
Fergus wrote:Personally I dont think its that stupid a question.
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