Tagged Questions

4
votes
1answer
58 views

How would gravity change on a planet rotating around itself very fast?

Let's take a planet identical to Earth, but with rotation speed multiplied by ten thousand. What would happen with the gravity if it was spinning madly around itself? Would the centrifugal force make ...
1
vote
2answers
76 views

What happens when a star undergoes gravitational collapse?

Immediately prior to becoming a supernova the core of some types of stars may suffer gravitational collapse. What happens to any planets in orbit around the star at the instant the mass is fully ...
3
votes
2answers
131 views

Could a planet sized bubble of breatheable atmostphere exist?

I'm reading a book (Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder) that the main location is a planet called Virga, which contains air, water, and floating chunks of rock, and has no or a very small amount of ...
2
votes
1answer
37 views

Reconciling Units in Jeans' Criterion Formula

In "Physics and Chemistry of the Solar System" Jeans' Criterion is given as: $\frac{GmM}{R_c} = \frac{3mkT}{2}$ ... To me this suggests that on the left we have Joules, and on the right we have ...
0
votes
1answer
102 views

Do all black holes spin in the same direction?

My question is as stated above, do all black holes spin the same direction? To my knowledge, the spin in the direction of the spin of the matter that created them. Another similar question was asked ...
2
votes
1answer
96 views

What are we all falling towards?

One meteorite fell on the ground in Russia, last week. In different circumstances, it could have orbited the earth, or perhaps pass close to the earth and then disappear into the space. It seems that ...
41
votes
5answers
2k views

Is there a small enough planet or asteroid you can orbit by jumping?

I just had this idea of orbiting a planet just by jumping and then flying upon it on its orbit kind of like superman. So, Would it be theoretically possible or is there a chance of that small body to ...
1
vote
1answer
130 views

How to calculate gravity inside the star?

Gravity must decrease due to less effective mass when going inside the object but also must increase with depth inside the star due to its higher density. Is there a model or formula approximating ...
17
votes
8answers
980 views

Why are L4 and L5 lagrangian points stable?

This diagram from wikipedia shows the gravitational potential energy of the sun-earth two body system, and demonstrates clearly the semi-stability of the L1, L2, and L3 lagrangian points. The blue ...
8
votes
6answers
509 views

Why is there an escape velocity?

I've been trying for days, but I just can't understand why escape velocities exist. I've searched the web and even this site, and although I've read many explanations, I haven't been able to truly ...
1
vote
0answers
57 views

Thermal gravitational radiation and its detection

To my poor knowledge on the topic, the gravitational waves that are most likely to be detected by LIGO or other experiments do not have thermal spectrum. But I'm not certain. I know that Hawking's ...
1
vote
2answers
76 views

What allows new born suns to travel away from each other?

What allows massive new born suns to move away from each other, as they have been observed. I would think that their massive gravity would prevent this and cause them to slam into each other.
2
votes
1answer
286 views

Combined Gravitational Force Vectors in a Spherical Coordinate System

Asking a question here is quite intimidating for me -- while I love Physics, my high-school understanding only allows me to go so far... I've been trying to solve this problem for the last couple of ...
3
votes
1answer
133 views

Simulating a black hole binary system

As part of a project for my degree I am writing code to simulate N-body gravitational interactions, however I have to then use this code to investigate something. Struggling to think of ideas I ...
3
votes
2answers
125 views

Gravity of a disc

What proof is there that the center of gravity of a disc is at its center when the gravitational field is not uniform, such as objects close to the edge of the disc, or lying within the body of the ...
3
votes
1answer
530 views

Escape velocity of a rocket standing on Ganymede (Moon of Jupiter)

I want to calculate the escape velocity of a rocket, standing on the surface of Ganymede (moon of Jupiter) and trying to leave Ganymede. My thinking was, the kinetic energy $E_{\text{KIN}}$ must be ...
2
votes
0answers
91 views

Does Spacetime have a “This Side Up” arrow? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Does the curvature of spacetime theory assume gravity? Forgive my naivete as I am not schooled in Physics or Mathematics. I was watching NOVA's "The Fabric of the ...
2
votes
3answers
657 views

Initial vs Constant Orbital Velocity

I am working on some basic physics simulation for a game and need to simulate gravity. I have a system working that is behaving more or less correctly so far, but I want to see if I can send a ...
8
votes
5answers
3k views

Stephen Hawking says universe can create itself from nothing, but how exactly?

Stephen Hawking says in his latest book The Grand Design that, Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Is it not circular logic? I mean, how ...
5
votes
3answers
76 views

Could dark energy be the effect of gravity at great distances?

This may be a silly question, but is it possible that dark energy and gravity are related to each other? Space-time is deformed everywhere in space by objects with mass. The more massive the object, ...
7
votes
3answers
81 views

How would two equally massed stars orbit?

In an empty universe, except for two equally massed stars, how would they orbit? Or, for another example, if the earth suddenly grew to be the mass of the sun, how would they orbit, or interact? Would ...
-3
votes
1answer
181 views

Gravitational time dilation and intelligent life [closed]

Thinking in the posibility of extraterrestrial life, I think that gravity could be a fundamental factor for evolution, I mean, in darkest zones of universe, where is dust, little mass accumulation, ...
7
votes
5answers
699 views

Two orbiting planets in perpendicular planes

Inspired by this question. Can a 3 body problem, starting with two planets orbiting a larger one (so massive it may be taken to stand still) in perpendicular planes, be stable? Is there known an ...
7
votes
2answers
2k views

Why does Venus rotate the opposite direction as other planets?

Given: Law of Conservation of Angular Momentum. Reverse spinning with dense atmosphere (92 times > Earth & CO2 dominant sulphur based). Surface same degree of aging all over. Theoretical large ...
6
votes
4answers
494 views

Where's earths death bulge, destroying everything in it's path?

I was watching a BBC documentary on space last night. It was talking about gravity, and it said that the reason we only ever see one side of the moon, is because the earths gravity is strong enough ...
3
votes
5answers
1k views

How do we know that earth moves around sun and that too in elliptical orbit

I know the basics of solar system like how earth moves around sun, and that we have so many planets, elliptical orbit of earth, and how far is sun from earth etc etc. I want to take a step back and ...
-2
votes
1answer
411 views

History of Man Acquired knowledge of solar system [closed]

I know the basics of solar system like how earth moves around sun, and that we have so many planets, elliptical orbit of earth, and how far is sun from earth etc etc. I want to take a step back and ...
1
vote
3answers
337 views

Space as “flat” plane

I was watching the documentary Carl Sagan did about gravity (I believe it's quite old though) and wondered about space being "flat" and that mass creates dents in this plane as shown at about 3 ...
5
votes
3answers
330 views

Black holes in a head-on collision

Assume two uncharged non-rotating black holes traveling straight at each other with no outside forces acting on the system. What is thought to happen to the kinetic energy of these two masses when ...
8
votes
3answers
462 views

Evidence for black hole event horizons

I know that there's a lot of evidence for extremely compact bodies. But is there any observation from which we can infer the existence of an actual horizon? Even if we are able to someday resolve ...