What Effect Would a Nuclear World War-III Have on Earth's Orbit Around the Sun.?

Wednesday, February 22, 2023

Greetings ATS Members!

Please read the following explanation of why the Earth stays in orbit around the Sun...

The Earth is "falling" around the Sun.

The Earth has some initial momentum - it is moving in a direction, which is perpendicular to the direction of the Sun from the Earth.

The Sun's gravity is enough to keep the Earth from flying off in a straight line, away from the Sun, but not enough to bring the Earth closer in.

The Earth is continually changing its direction of movement, but in such a way that it follows a nearly circular path around the Sun.

If the Sun's gravity were stronger, it would pull the Earth in closer, but then the angle between the Earth's motion would also be changing more rapidly, so it would continue revolving around the Sun.

Source: scienceline.ucsb.edu...

QUESTIONS:

If there was a World War-III NUCLEAR war, would the huge detonations jar the Earth out of its current orbit?

We could lose mass, causing the Earth to either orbit closer to the Sun, or farther away from the Sun.

Either would be catastrophic for whatever life survives, wouldn't it?

-CareWeMust

Nope. Super volcanoes are more powerful and haven't moved the orbit one bit

a reply to: carewemust

No!

Compared to the Earth's momentum and spin, our weapons are just tiny firecrackers.

The Earth would just think (if it does of course) "Was that a fart?"

P

originally posted by: ATSAlex
Nope. Super volcanoes are more powerful and haven't moved the orbit one bit

Have a bunch of them exploded at once?

originally posted by: pheonix358
a reply to: carewemust

No!

Compared to the Earth's momentum and spin, our weapons are just tiny firecrackers.

The Earth would just think (if it does of course) "Was that a fart?"

P

The distance between the Earth and the Sun is becoming greater, even without our "Firecrackers".

www.livescience.com...

Hundreds of Nuclear Blasts could either enhance that trend, or reverse it.

You need more powerful forces to change the orbit of a planet.

www.scientificamerican.com...

a reply to: carewemust

Literally none...they dont even come close to a force which would alter anything to do with earths trajectory or spin rate. But they sure could reduce the liviable area of earth to underground...

a reply to: carewemust

No.

All countries ' nukes together could not perform even a minute change in Earth's orbit.

Nukes however could devate life in portions of the planet, and possibly induce a "nuclear winter" if enough dust and soot is blown into the upper atmosphere.

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: ATSAlex
Nope. Super volcanoes are more powerful and haven't moved the orbit one bit

Have a bunch of them exploded at once?

Yes, back in the very early days of the planet. But it doesn't matter. Explosions on the Earth might blast some matter up in altitude, but then it falls back down. The center of mass of the Earth doesn't change perceptibly.

originally posted by: ATSAlex
You need more powerful forces to change the orbit of a planet.

www.scientificamerican.com...

That's interesting. Just a "subtle" shift in orbit caused massive changes in the global environment. Our orbital "sweet spot" really is a special place.

originally posted by: RickyD
a reply to: carewemust

Literally none...they dont even come close to a force which would alter anything to do with earths trajectory or spin rate. But they sure could reduce the liviable area of earth to underground...

I keep envisioning these scenes from space travel movies, and Star Trek, where nothing but huge asteroids are orbiting a sun where a planet was, before their "final" World War.

a reply to: carewemust

The Earth's orbit would be least concern to the survivors of a nuclear showdown
There would be no winners in this war.... That's is why the likelihood of nukes being used very slim
In a real war nations would be pulling out the secret weapons they have been developing for decades
America. Russia. China and so on ..what breakthroughs have they made in the way of weaponry. Perhaps things even more frightening then a nuke who knows in this inverted upside down clown world anything is possible . Generally wars about land and resources ... Anihilating a country where it uninhabitable does not make sense. It is a good deterant though ... And yes nukes were dropped twice on Japan. But those were tiny compared to modern ones ....those would unleash an unimaginable horror upon the world

a reply to: carewemust

The Earth is "falling" around the Sun.

The Earth has some initial momentum - it is moving in a direction, which is perpendicular to the direction of the Sun from the Earth.

Technically - The Earth and all other planets are moving away from the Sun, albeit centimeters per year.

But to answer the thread title," What Effect Would a Nuclear World War-III Have on Earth's Orbit Around the Sun.?"

I think there would be no one left around to observe it.

a reply to: carewemust

Think of a gnat being hit by a train. That is the energy of a nuke compared to what is needed to change the orbit.

But then again, Earth's orbit is not set and moves automatically to compensate for speed and distance changes as all orbits do. That is just the way orbital mechanics works.

a reply to: Hiram33

We have a SPACE FORCE. They probably have some offensive and defensive weapons in orbit by now, don't they?

originally posted by: charlyv
a reply to: carewemust

The Earth is "falling" around the Sun.

The Earth has some initial momentum - it is moving in a direction, which is perpendicular to the direction of the Sun from the Earth.

Technically - The Earth and all other planets are moving away from the Sun, albeit centimeters per year.

But to answer the thread title," What Effect Would a Nuclear World War-III Have on Earth's Orbit Around the Sun.?"
I think there would be no one left around to observe it.

I think most people living in the Southern Hemisphere would survive, assuming the winds north of the Equator don't bleed too far south of the Equator.

a reply to: carewemust


watch this pretty scary fact-based nuclear scenario

FWIW my bug out spot better have well deep underground bunker

originally posted by: beyondknowledge
a reply to: carewemust

Think of a gnat being hit by a train. That is the energy of a nuke compared to what is needed to change the orbit.

It Looks like everyone is correct who says all nukes combined wouldn't shift our orbit noticeably..

All you would need to do is suddenly stop the Earth from moving. Then it just falls in.

Earth kinetic energy equals half the Mass of the earth times its orbital velocity squared, around 1040 ergs. (Ergs is a unit of energy).

The Yield from the starfish prime test was 1 megaton of TNT (around 1022 ergs). Taking the ratio, you find that you need 600,000,000,000,000,000 nuclear weapons.

More at: gizmodo.com...

This is encouraging in a way. Man's long-term survival is possible. Even after WWIII.

originally posted by: putnam6
a reply to: carewemust

watch this pretty scary fact-based nuclear scenario
FWIW my bug out spot better have well deep underground bunker

I watched it briefly. Depressing, isn't it? I think once we realize that other non-Earth intelligent life exists, we (humankind) won't even think about nuking ourselves out of existence....evoking pity from other (smarter) species.

a reply to: carewemust

Think about it like this, while an explosion in the surface of the earth or it's atmosphere may have an affect upon the centre of gravity for the planet it would not do much for it's actually orbital pathway.

However if that explosion is sufficiently powerful to send material at above the escape velocity of the earth into space (the escape velocity not being in this sense to put it into orbit but to actually send it out into space) then that would have a tiny affect, even launching something like Voyager had this affect but it was so small, so negligible as to be of no concern.

Even space material raining down onto the earth has the potential to affect it's orbit but for something to really affect the earth it would have to be so large as to likely be enough to kill all life on the surface of the planet anyway.

I would therefore not worry too much.

Now if we ever crack the anti gravity problem then we may have to start to worry though that would provide both a danger and a solution to that danger as well as providing us with the ability to move the planet, even the sun or the entire solar system should we ever have the need to do so BUT by that time we will likely have left the nest if we still exist OR have split into a new civilization based off world and an earth bound one that will stay on the planet.

Basically it would require a huge amount of energy, a nuclear explosion even the soviet tsar bomba that was the largest nuclear explosion in history though the soviets actually had plans to make one many thousands of times more powerful even than that in there original doomsday weapon plan for a floating ship sized nuclear bomb that would sail the coasts of the soviet union with sensors to detect if a nuclear attack had taken place and then detonated spewing enough radioactive waste and poison into the atmosphere to kill almost all life on earth would not have really affected the planets orbit that much if at all.

No the danger is not changing it's orbit around the sun but other changes to it such as altering the earth's rotation, slowing or speeding it up and indeed even affecting it's axis but the main orbital pathway of the planet and moon system around the sun would likely not be affected above anything other than a negligible level if that.