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Posted: 10/1/2011 2:07:14 PM EDT
....a Death Star blew up Earth like it destroyed Alderaan in Star Wars? Would the moon continue on roughly it's same course through the galaxy? Or would the change in gravitational pull (due to the absense of the Earth) cause it to go careening out of control? |
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What round for galaxy destroying death star? Pretty much anything that you would use on a womp rat. |
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What round for galaxy destroying death star? Photon torpedo |
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It would turn from regular cheese into Swiss cheese. WHAT IF IT WAS MADE OF RIBS? |
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The moon is currently in orbit around the Earth, which is in orbit around the Sun.
If the Earth was blown up into a brazillion fragments, the Moon would still be deep in the Sun's gravitational field, and would have no way of reaching solar escape velocity. Therefore, the Moon would continue more or less in a path around the Sun that would be close to the orbit the Earth follows now. Steve |
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The moon is currently in orbit around the Earth, which is in orbit around the Sun. If the Earth was blown up into a brazillion fragments, the Moon would still be deep in the Sun's gravitational field, and would have no way of reaching solar escape velocity. Therefore, the Moon would continue more or less in a path around the Sun that would be close to the orbit the Earth follows now. Steve What about the Space Station? Would it then go in orbit around the moon? Or would it go careening across the galaxy? Edit: Oh, and by the way, currently 62.5% of Arfcom says you're wrong. So, suck on that, Vader. |
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It would turn from regular cheese into Swiss cheese. WHAT IF IT WAS MADE OF RIBS? Would you eat it then? I know I would. Heck, I'd have seconds. |
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If it is no longer revolving around a planet.....wouldn't it then become a small planet since it is still revolving around the sun?
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I really don't care, cause I would be on the Death Star doing something really important. Like cleaning Restrooms or being a short order cook, same difference.
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The moon is currently in orbit around the Earth, which is in orbit around the Sun. If the Earth was blown up into a brazillion fragments, the Moon would still be deep in the Sun's gravitational field, and would have no way of reaching solar escape velocity. Therefore, the Moon would continue more or less in a path around the Sun that would be close to the orbit the Earth follows now. Steve I looked at it as the earth moon mass system is in orbit around the sun. If the earth mass is annihilated, the earth moon mass system now has a hell of a lot less mass, but the same velocity. So it should crash into the sun very quickly unless it gets captured on the way there ETA: sober reflection on this: wrong because in addition to less mass (assuming that is the case), also means less force pulling it to the sun, so probably stay in orbit, and if it doesn't, it will happen very slowly. But no way it could escape the solar system. |
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The moon would orbit the remains of the earth in some fucked up orbit. Possibly getting slung off into the sun.
If it stayed on course though, it would still orbit the sun and accrete pieces of the blown up earth. Eventually the moon would become the new earth after it acquired enough mass. |
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fall into sun: likely
maintain current or similar orbit: unlikely careen through galaxy: impossible. result: poll fail. |
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A large sphere of small bits has exactly the same gravitational force as a small sphere consisting of one large bit.
If some of the Earth's bits expand beyond the moon's orbit, things would get complex, but I don't see any reason why the moon would fall into the sun or travel outside the solar system. It would still be traveling at basically the same speed at basically the same distance from the sun. |
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The moon's average orbit around the sun would change only slightly. How it would change would depend on its orbital angular moment in regard
to the sun that it was at when the earth's gravitational field became no factor anymore. If the angular moment at that time were spinward, (in the direction of the orbit going forward around the sun) then the result would be a mildly elliptical orbit with a slightly higher apogee than the earth's present orbital path. (Energy added = higher orbit) If the angular orbital moment were antispinward, the resulting orbit would be mildly elliptical with a slightly lower apogee. (Energy lost = lower orbit) If the angular orbital moment were sunward, this results in a net equal energy state but with higher orbital altitude oscillations and thus a higher orbital apogee and a lower orbital perigee in an elliptical orbit. If the angular orbital moment were anti-sunward, this also results in a net equal energy state with higher orbital altitude oscillations with the same outcome as the previous case. CJ |
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It would wander away from it's current orbit around earth, and end-up orbiting the sun.
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Would the oceans enter orbit? - some sort of water blob in space? |
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it would loose orbit and float away, maybe get picked up by another planet...
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It would probably continue to orbit with the debris field of the earth's destruction, which should still have the same total mass. Don't know if the distribution of the debris field's mass would be spread out enough to cause the moon to shift it's orbit. Eventually there'd be a small asteroid belt between Venus and Mars, with the moon somewhere in there.
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wouldnt it slowly attract all of the pieces of exploded earth and become a new planet?
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It would turn from regular cheese into Swiss cheese. WHAT IF IT WAS MADE OF RIBS? Would you eat it then? I know I would. Heck, I'd have seconds. Then polish it off with a nice cold Budweiser |
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I really don't care, cause I would be on the Death Star doing something really important. Like cleaning Restrooms or being a short order cook, same difference. Sort of covering both ends of the spectrum there, huh? lol Pav |
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wouldnt it slowly attract all of the pieces of exploded earth and become a new planet? Couldn't the pieces all come back together around the moon?....like a moon/Earth tootsie pop? |
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What if NASA built a giant treadmill for the moon to orbit on? Then what...???????
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Quoted: What round for galaxy destroying death star? 40 gigawatts? |
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Your talking an explosion thats big enough to rip a planet to bits. The shockwave and kinetic energy would send it somewhere.
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Steve I looked at it as the earth moon mass system is in orbit around the sun. If the earth mass is annihilated, the earth moon mass system now has a hell of a lot less mass, but the same velocity. So it should crash into the sun very quickly unless it gets captured on the way there I thought the same thing minutes ago. But an orbit is just the fact that an object is traveling forward at exactly the same speed it falls at. Kinda. A rock falls at the same speed a a pebble. So the change in mass shouldn't effect orbit. I think? At the same time spinning a rock at the end of a string around my head is easier than a bolwing ball at the end of a string. So maybe something deos change. |
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and what, pray tell, is the medium the shockwave is propagating through?
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It would end up orbiting the Sun, near the distance of the Earth-Moon L-1 point.
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it would lose orbit and float away, maybe get picked up by another planet... This is actually a possibility also along with cmjohnson's explanation. Some combination of both... |
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It depends on what exactly happened to the Earth. I mean, if you blew up the Earth, you'd create a cloud of debris that would still be gravitationally attracted to itself, so it would tend to re-form a planet. Only the pieces that shot out fast enough would escape permanently (and then create an asteroid belt, I think).
If the Earth were vaporized (I don't recall the effect of the Death Star, whether it caused explosion or vaporization) and literally dispersed away so no planet would re-form, the Moon would (assuming it was unaffected by the Death Star's shot) simply continue in orbit around the Sun like it always has, it just wouldn't be orbiting the Earth too. It's not like the Sun's gravity doesn't affect the Moon too. |
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Guess it's time to break out the Space 1999 DVD set again... You have to be old to remember watching that tv show. I have the whole series, it's funny to watch 30 years later. Now I can't get that 70s guitar theme song out of my head. |
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....a Death Star blew up Earth like it destroyed Alderaan in Star Wars? Would the moon continue on roughly it's same course through the galaxy? Or would the change in gravitational pull (due to the absense of the Earth) cause it to go careening out of control? It would orbit the sun and collect some mass from the Earth's debris. Probably wind up in a slightly elliptical orbit. |
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That video is bullshit.
There's not going to be an annular shock wave around an exploding planet. There's no ring-shaped concentration of mass that would cause that. Not on a planet. There MIGHT be one, in an accretion disk around a black hole that's sucking matter from a companion star, though. The shock wave will be generally spherical, and NOT feature a prominent annular shock ring. It looks cool in a movie but it's just pure movie fantasy bullshit. |
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That video is bullshit. There's not going to be an annular shock wave around an exploding planet. There's no ring-shaped concentration of mass that would cause that. Not on a planet. There MIGHT be one, in an accretion disk around a black hole that's sucking matter from a companion star, though. The shock wave will be generally spherical, and NOT feature a prominent annular shock ring. It looks cool in a movie but it's just pure movie fantasy bullshit. Yeah, but it was hit by a fancy laser and stuff. I mean, a really big, planet-exploding laser. That will make that happen. |
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That video is bullshit. There's not going to be an annular shock wave around an exploding planet. There's no ring-shaped concentration of mass that would cause that. Not on a planet. There MIGHT be one, in an accretion disk around a black hole that's sucking matter from a companion star, though. The shock wave will be generally spherical, and NOT feature a prominent annular shock ring. It looks cool in a movie but it's just pure movie fantasy bullshit. So you are saying that even science thinks Lucas should quit screwing around. |
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It really depends on what happens to the earth.
1)If the mass of the earth stays in relatively compact form, then not much. 2)If the mass of the earth was spread out over the galaxy, then the mass that hit the moon would give it a push. If the earth just disappeared then you would NOT have that push. Either way it would take off like a rock from David's sling shot. Where it ended up depends on where it was in it's orbit. That is the earth between the moon and the sun? Is the moon ahead of or behind the earth in it's orbit around the sun? Is the moon between the earth and the sun? Depending on it's position, it is either going to get a velocity that will move it away from the sun or towards it. Impeach Obama for the Good of the Planet. |
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When the Death Star blows the Earth up, the debris and shock wave would send the Moon hurtling into the Death Star. It takes approximately 24 standard Earth hours for the Death Star super laser to recharge. Someone will say "What about Return of the Jedi when they were blowing up Rebel ships?" Blowing up Rebel ships takes less power than blowing up a planet. Therefore, the Death Star would not have enough time to recharge it's main weapon before the Moon crashes into the Death Star and destroys it.
End result...Earth wins via poetic justice. |
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I believe CMJohnson got it right. You must have missed my post about the big fancy laser. |
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I believe CMJohnson got it right. Could you please explain the Physics behind the Death Star Weapon. |
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The moon would orbit the remains of the earth in some fucked up orbit. Possibly getting slung off into the sun. If it stayed on course though, it would still orbit the sun and accrete pieces of the blown up earth. Eventually the moon would become the new earth after it acquired enough mass. Not really. It might gain some mass but it lacks an active core required to support an atmosphere. So while it might take our orbit and grow a little it would never support life or liquid water. |
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