Posted on 08/23/2006 10:24:06 AM PDT by Boxen
No, he's right...and the answer is consistent with Newtonian physics.
Sorry bud. You need to brush up on total angular momentum and orbital mechanics.
(What I do for a living)
In a frictionless system. Neither earth nor the moon nor the combination is a frictionless system. Energy is lost from both bodies by heat radiation--very deep infrared--and both will eventually stop rotating.
Not quite. The solar system formed out of an accretion disc causing most planetary formation to be close in orbital inclination. However, there are minor differences between all of the planets; Pluto and Mercury being the most extreme.
Note, this does not directly equate to a planets eccentricity or axial tilt referenced to the Earth's equatorial plane.
It is not heat radiation but tidal forces causing this phenomenon.
Thanks. Neat story (I saw it on SpaceRef.)
Fair enough. I need to look at some sources and get back to you. I still don't see exploding planets. Where does the energy come from? However, I will call some folks I know on Stardust and see what is up.
It is tidal action, a kind of friction, and the energy of roation is thereby freed and lost from the earth-moon system by heat radiation.
Van Flandern makes reference to phase state changes inside the planet. When the phase changes it happens quickly and the whole thing blows up suddenly.
Nope. It’s the conservation of total angular momentum of the entire system. As the Earth slows down due to tidal action, the Moon must recede. This same tidal action is why the Moon now has the same orbital period and rotation.
As the Moon receeds, it also slows down. Kepler's third law.
The materials need something like 3000 degrees to form. The sun could blow off dust like this, or maybe it came from the supernova that supposedly was here before the present star system.
Before the moon can come to tidal lock it must somehow dispose of energy. Otherwise it would continue to rotate slower and slower while it recedes but never quite lock. And it also recedes to bleed off earth's rotational angular momentum. There are at least two things going on here. Maybe three since earth is also headed toward tidal lock with the moon.
Technically speakin' - the writer is dead wrong.
Fully half the time, the back side of the moon is fully lit. We jest can't sea it from here (Since all teh seas are on this side of the moon -w here we can see them from here, except when they are in the dark, which is when we can't see the seas from here). Further, or nearer as the case may be, since the side we can see from here is in the dark when the side we can't see from here is in the light, so we really can't see either side from here half the time so neither side must be visible the rest of the time from from here, so THIS side of the moon is in the dark when the other side of the .....
Do my wife and kids count? ;-)
No, that is Hoagland's spiel. There is some cross-fertilization, but mainly they follow different paths.
We don't know much about the inside of our planet. Who knows if there might be a change of phase beginning right now? When the phase changes the material inside the planet could suddenly need a lot more room. It happened to Krypton!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.