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Like a counter revolution or a something moving the opposite way of earths orbit
Well the spin of a planet is independent of its orbit around the Sun - so trying to change the spin won't do anything.
On the other hand, if something has the same orbit as Earth, but is moving the opposite way ... then it will hit the Earth! That could change Earth's orbit - probably not very much though unless the thing was as big as the Moon.
Fan of [url=http://www.red-oasis.com/]Red Oasis[/url]
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Would it change anything if it was within the atmosphere of a planet and was going against the independent revolutions of the planet from the sun?
-"you watch the sunset, and I watch the night rise"
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Hi bstvns139, everyone.
Your questions are so vague I do not know what you are asking. But if you are asking: "can you do anything strictly with in a planet's atmosphere that will change its orbit?" the answer is no.
If you are asking: "can you do anything strictly with in a planet's atmosphere that will change its rotation about its own axis?" the answer is not really.
To change the rotation of the planet you must move some radius from the center of the body (the planet's surface is fine) and fire mass off of it at an angle (90 degrees is best) at as high of a speed as possible. This creates torque and will change the planet's rotation. However the mass must LEAVE the planet. If it falls back the angular momentum you have gained in the firing you lose in the impact.
Now the not really part of the answer come up with you start dealing with gyroscopes. Let us say that the body we are discussing is a spaceship with a gyroscope at the center of mass. Let us say that the rotating part of the gyroscope masses 1/1000 as much as the rest of the spaceship. If you start the gyroscope rotating 10,000 revolutions per minute, the rest of the spaceship will rotate in the other direction at 10 rev / min. (You also have a bomb's worth of energy humming in the center of your ship.)
Now the net angular momentum of the spaceship as a whole has not changed, but the outside of the ship is spinning!
(c) 2008 Richard Wayne Smith
HOWEVER, this has given me another idea that I think would work. Let us say we want to make a tide locked body - say a moon - start to spin. We build a giant accelerator around the equator that will spin 1 kg steel ball bearings around the planet at high speeds. Spin the millions of these steel balls up quickly.
Now the whole moon starts to rotate. But it does not complete the rotation. There is a mass concentration on the near side which keeps the massive side of the moon pointed at the planet. But let us say that we have enough torque to move the moon 1 meter clockwise.
Just when we reach the maximum displacement (which takes, say, an hour to do) we send those millions of steel balls into tens of thousands of side loops off our accelerator and reverse the direction.
The moon swings back because of gravity (its tide locked after all and we are no longer forcing it off center) AND it swings a bit further. It goes 2 meters counterclockwise. About 2 hours after we reverse the direction of the steel balls, the moon reaches maximum displacement counterclockwise.
Then we reverse the direction of the balls again. The result is that an hour later it swings 3 meters clockwise.
You can see what is happening. We are building up a swing using the natural resonate frequency of the moon. We are using a gigantic expenditure of energy to create a torque. The interaction with the gravity of the main planet allows us to transfer this torque off the moon itself.
This works like a child pumping herself up on a swing with out touching the ground. It would not work if the body was by itself in deep space, anymore than a child could pump a swing without a gravity field.
I think it could work in any solar system using the sun as a bank to pass the angular momentum to. However, the weaker the gravity field, the less angular momentum you can pass and the more effort & time it would take to build up any sort of rotation.
I'm quite proud of this idea, I've never read it anywhere and I think it would work. Can anyone find a flaw in it?
Warm regards, Rick
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Thanks
It looks and sounds flawless to me. Good Idea!
-"you watch the sunset, and I watch the night rise"
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We seem to focus a lot on the atmosphere. What about the biosphere? Is there any consensus on how that will come about? if we release enough organisms, will they automatically form a stable and balanced ecosystem?
-Josh
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I think we understand a lot more about ecology now than we did 50 years ago. I think we could make a stab at a balanced ecology if we have the life support elements there. Probably could be computer modelled as well. No doubt big mistakes will be made but nothing in ecology is irretrievable. I mean, you might lose a species, but the ecological niche remains and you can start again with something else to fill it. We do manage lots of ecologies. We've eliminated mosquitoes in many parts of the world through drainage. In Africa the numbers of all the major land animals are held in balance through culling.
Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com
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One simplifying aspect of biosphere construction on Mars during terraformation is the synergetic progression that James Graham has likened to 'ecological succession'. Early in terraformation we are presented with climate conditions similar to Earth's arctic or alpine biomes, which have very low species variety and relatively simple ecological structure. As Mars becomes more clement, we can gradually progress from hardy, simple ecosystems to richer, more complex ones. This not only allows for but encourages a natural learning process in application for biosphere construction and maintainence. The data obtained and lessons learned could be invaluable in understanding Earth's ecology (and possibly that of alien worlds), as well as in constructing other extraterrestrial ecosystems. Sometimes I wonder if the knowledge gained by this process alone would make Mars worth terraforming.
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." - Albert Einstein
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