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  • Increased

    18 45.00%
  • Decreased

    7 17.50%
  • Stayed the same

    5 12.50%
  • I dont know but i do care

    3 7.50%
  • I neither know nor care

    7 17.50%

Thread: the earth - heavier or lighter

  1. #16
    S Sang-drax's Avatar
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    Energy is mass. The sun is radiating a lot of heat, so of course it's losing mass.
    Last edited by Sang-drax : Tomorrow at 02:21 AM. Reason: Time travelling

  2. #17
    Cat without Hat CornedBee's Avatar
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    If you're not a creationist, the question is still imprecise, because the earth gradually came into existence by cosmic dust clumping together.

    But taking the end of this process as a starting point, I'm pretty sure the mass has decreased. Why? Well, while asteroids hitting the earth generally increase its weight, at one point it was hit by one so large that it broke off a very large chunk: the moon. I don't think the combined weight of all the asteroid dust that remained on earth can make up for that loss.
    So I think the mass has decreased overall, although it is increasing gradually.
    All the buzzt!
    CornedBee

    "There is not now, nor has there ever been, nor will there ever be, any programming language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad code."
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  3. #18
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    >at one point it was hit by one so large that it broke off a very large chunk: the moon.

    i took a full year of astronomy courses and ive never even heard that mentioned as a theory. I was told the moon was most likely a large asteroid that was caught by the earths gravity and pulled into orbit.

    +1 increasionalists.

  4. #19
    Toaster Zach L.'s Avatar
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    I've heard of it. Seen computer models too (or rather, videos or computer screens running the simulations). Seems like a viable theory.

    At any rate, it is probably increasing, but at a truly, remarkably negligible rate (barring any large meteor strikes, of course ).
    The word rap as it applies to music is the result of a peculiar phonological rule which has stripped the word of its initial voiceless velar stop.

  5. #20
    Yes, my avatar is stolen anonytmouse's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Perspective
    >at one point it was hit by one so large that it broke off a very large chunk: the moon.

    i took a full year of astronomy courses and ive never even heard that mentioned as a theory. I was told the moon was most likely a large asteroid that was caught by the earths gravity and pulled into orbit.
    In other news, thirty seconds with Google trumps a year of education.
    http://www.psi.edu/projects/moon/moon.html

    At the time Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, other smaller planetary bodies were also growing. One of these hit earth late in Earth's growth process, blowing out rocky debris. A fraction of that debris went into orbit around the Earth and aggregated into the moon.
    ...
    Thus, the giant impact hypothesis continues to be the leading hypothesis on how the moon formed. Is it right? Can it be disproven by more careful research? Only time will tell, but so far it has stood up to 25 years of scrutiny.
    24 Hours of Chaos: The Day The Moon Was Made

    For 25 years, scientists have pondered a theory that the Moon was created when an object the size of Mars crashed into Earth less than 100 million years after the Sun was born, some 4.6 billion years ago. The general idea has been run through the paces and massaged into shape and is now the favored explanation.

  6. #21
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    >In other news, thirty seconds with Google trumps a year of education.

    hey, i said i was in the classes, i didnt say anything about being awake...

    edit: but i actually hadnt heard that once in either course, though we didnt talk all that much about earth. Next thing you'll be telling me that man has actually visited the moon
    Last edited by Perspective; 12-08-2004 at 08:52 PM.

  7. #22
    chococoder
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    The earth slowly leaks air into outer space.
    It also picks up a small amount of material from falling rocks (meteorites).
    But that's offset by the material we sent out into space on rockets.

    The earth picks up some radiation from the sun (which as has been stated is mass), but also radiates itself.

    There's probably a slight net loss in mass/energy but it may take geological timespans to see any significant amount.

  8. #23
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    oh, oh. this one im sure about

    >>It also picks up a small amount of material from falling rocks (meteorites).

    This is incorrect. A meteroite is a meteor (or piece of meteor) that resides on earth. The falling rock that hits the earth is a meteor, the resulting peice of rock on earth is a meteorite
    Meteorite Me"te*or*ite, n. Cf. F. m'et'eorite. (Min.)
    A mass of stone or iron which has fallen to the earth from
    space
    oh yeah, that year of astronomy wasnt wasted after all, it helped me point out a grammer error

  9. #24
    Cheesy Poofs! PJYelton's Avatar
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    So, if we send a meteorite back out into space, does it become a meteor again? Or are our top scientists still working on this one?

  10. #25
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by PJYelton
    So, if we send a meteorite back out into space, does it become a meteor again? Or are our top scientists still working on this one?
    it becomes a meteroriteor. then if it comes back to earth its a meteoriteorite, and so on...

  11. #26
    Bob Dole for '08 B0bDole's Avatar
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    I have a good elementary Astronomy question.

    If our Sun was replaced with a 1 solar-mass Black Hole, How would this change Earth's orbit?
    Hmm

  12. #27
    Registered User hk_mp5kpdw's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by B0bDole
    I have a good elementary Astronomy question.

    If our Sun was replaced with a 1 solar-mass Black Hole, How would this change Earth's orbit?

    Since the mass is the same, the gravitational forces it would exert would be the same so I would say that it wouldn't. At the current distance, the sun can be considered a gravitational point source and just replacing it with a true gravitational point source wouldn't seem to have any impact on us. That's my guess anyway, I could be wrong.
    "Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods."
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  13. #28
    Cheesy Poofs! PJYelton's Avatar
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    Shouldn't change the orbit at all. Might get a little dark though.

  14. #29
    Crazy Fool Perspective's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by B0bDole
    I have a good elementary Astronomy question.

    If our Sun was replaced with a 1 solar-mass Black Hole, How would this change Earth's orbit?
    well, considering a black hole is a star that becomes so massive it collapses on itself, id say this isnt feasable. Not just the replacement but the existance of the entity itself. Now, if our sun was replaced by a one solar mass fork, it would have no effect on our orbit.

  15. #30
    Mayor of Awesometown Govtcheez's Avatar
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    To be totally pedantic, would the lack of heat change the orbit?

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