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Changing Earth's Orbit Proposed

Posted by Hemos on from the well-it's-a-little-ways-off-but dept.

SEWilco writes "This BBC story points out that a team of astronomers have found a way to adjust the orbit of the Earth. They suggest moving a large asteroid past Earth and using its gravity to pull us out to a slightly different orbit. Their concern was how to keep the Earth cool as the Sun ages and warms up in a billion years. It's nice to see someone thinking of the long term."

6 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. And then... by Have+Blue · · Score: 5

    ...we'll tether 5 worlds togther and ride them to escape the Core Explosion...



  2. How about just a piece of the earth? by sid_vicious · · Score: 5
    Maybe we could just split of a *piece* of the Earth and send it into another orbit.. y'know, as a test before we send the rest of Earth.

    I vote for California.

    --
    If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
  3. Time to relocate by John+Jorsett · · Score: 5
    It's idioitic [sic] to worry about something that's billions of years away. Who knows if mankind will survive this next Bush Administration? :)

    Perhaps you ought to move off the planet, just in case. Oh, and take Alec Baldwin with you.

  4. Re:Right... by TheCarp · · Score: 5

    The gravitational pull between the two bodies would indeed produce a force pulling the two "towards eachother".

    However, the idea is that it comes by with the right velocity and angle that it shoots right past, and just kind of pulls out our orbit a little bit.

    Basically... the asteroid would slow down, and we would speed up....but not enough so that it would actually come into our orbit or even hit us...it would continue right along its path.

    -Steve

    --
    "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
  5. A bit pointless? by sparcv9 · · Score: 5

    Three cheers for forward thinking, but if we're still tethered to a single planet a billion years from now, then something is drastically wrong. If we develop the space technology neccessary to actually harness an asteroid and make it go wherever we want it to, wouldn't that indicate a level of technology that would permit us to live on any damn planet we choose? We should be all over the freakin' galaxy by the time this becomes an issue. (Provided that we haven't become extinct via some other means - including by our own hands.)

    --

    This is not a Fugazi .sig
  6. Re:Couldn't we just... by TheCarp · · Score: 5

    Well.... I dunno whats sillier...your idea or the fact that I am actually going to explain why it wont work :)

    When a person jumps, they exert a force against the earth. Now...the mass distribution of the earth changes a bit...and thus the center of gravity changes...so if aenough people did this in a way that produced a net force, the earth would indeed move away from them. (it would take quite a few for this change to even be measurable.

    However... unless they reach escape velocity... the gravitational force between them and the earth will pull them back... exerting exactly the same magnitude of force against both, but in an opposite direction.

    Basically... the center of mass for a closed system (and in this case, we are indeed talking about a closed system) will not change. You need an EXTERNAL force to change the velocity, internal forces always cancel out.

    Now...if you could get the entire population of china to jump AND reach escape velocity.... that would be quite a different story...however... they may not fare too well.

    -Steve

    --
    "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"