Can an Asteroid Hit and Cause The Earth's rotation to change?

a reply to: sn0rch

I remember reading a comic book when I was a kid where this group of astronauts reached the end of the universe only to discover that there are way more. More universes out there. It's bottomless. One of the characters commented how it was like having sand run through fingers.

Hmm I think you and I both are thinking about this way too much and going off topic lol.

nusnus:

Im wondering if anyone has knowledge about whether an impact with an asteroid can cause the Earth's rotation to change the opposite way?

I too, was thinking of something similar the other day when looking at effects of an extraterrestrial body impacting the earth, something like an asteroid, or chunks off a comet. etc.

I doubt very much if an impact could cause the earth's rotation to go the other way, as something that could do that would be so large as to bring total destruction to both bodies. However, I do think that if large earthquakes can alter the earth's rotation slightly by slowing it down ever so slightly, I don't think it unreasonable to think that a large impact could do the same?

A large impact would most certainly shake the whole body of the planet and set it ringing until the impact energy dissipated, and the impact itself, if large enough, would probably act like a very brief and rapid application of a braking system if the impacting body's direction of travel was opposite to the earth's rotation, or maybe, if it was in the same direction, it might apply additional energy for added rotational speed. It might be that the earth's mass would quickly regain it's normal rotational speed as things settled and solar gravitation took command again, but with the orbit slightly shifted?

Think bowling ball rolling down there to knock down the pins. All of sudden there's some ball going after it at high speed hitting the top of the bowling ball. It might slow it down but do you think it will reverse the rotation? The Earth is not even like a bowling ball. The asteroid would have took a large chunk of top off it not really changing the rotation much.

Please if its possible could the UK be shunted further south? Not too far but just enough for us to have a decent change in our weather and to be able to identify summer because this last one was grey and not azure blue.

I like the ice skater analogy, but let me throw another analogy in along with it, I see everybody looking at it from a perspective as though the asteroid can only hit from the side, but think more along the lines of English on a Que ball. If you strike a que ball from the top, a little offset from center, and you can make a Que ball start off going in one direction, but ends up going in another direction because of the force the impact has on a round objects mass.causing it to completly change it's normal rotational pattern. So I would say yes it is possible.

a reply to: DonVoigt

If you strike a que ball from the top, a little offset from center, and you can make a Que ball start off going in one direction, but ends up going in another direction because of the force the impact has on a round objects mass.causing it to completly change it's normal rotational pattern. So I would say yes it is possible.

The amount of force it takes to reverse the rotation of the Earth would not be possible. Let's just say it hits the side of the Earth to spin it like a billiard ball (english or whatever you call it) it would go through the side of it and take a big chunk out of it. It wouldn't even alter the rotation much.

a reply to: new_here

So what happens when Venus starts spinning in its normal direction when it eventually happens?

The planet is still upside down. There used to be more planets think Thea and earth collision. Maybe another planet it hit it or cruised by and caused a gravitational pull.

a reply to: Deaf Alien

Venus rotates in the opposite direction to the rest of the planets and Uranus rotates on its side. I wouldn't be so sure that those two planets started off differently from the rest of the planets. We also have an asteroid belt where a planet once was, so something has messed with our solar system in the past, so whats to say it won't in the future.

a reply to: Shiloh7

That's the mystery that even today they can't solve. Learn physics first.

a reply to: Deaf Alien

I googled it so there's your answer. If it had happened to Earth it would have been gone.

Why does Venus rotate the opposite direction as other planets?

Reverse spinning with dense atmosphere (92 times > Earth & CO2 dominant sulphur based).
Surface same degree of aging all over
Hypothetical large impact is not a sufficient answer

Assuming any object large enough to alter a planets rotation or even orbit would likely destroy most of its shape, yet Venus has retained a spherical property with a seemingly flat, even terrain indicating no volcanoes,and few if any visible meteor impacts. It would be fragmented and dispersed for billions of years. Even the question of what meteor, comet, asteroid composition could survive traveling that close to the sun's temperature, radiation, electromagnetic energy, solar flares, or gravity to equal a mass reactionary change as to alter it's spin.

Venus spinning in the opposite direction remains a mystery.

Yes, it can. But the rotation can easily be restored
by using cars which all point in the same direction,
and all of them accelerating simultaneously.

That's how they designed the interstate system, and railways too: to allow us to nudge the planet back in place
no matter where the rock strikes us.

# 516

It would be mass vs mass and the relative speed differential. A sufficient much larger mass could pass by Earth or Venus, really close without impact, and the the planet may be drawn to it in an arc and colliding the object at or after that occurred. In that way, a planet could change orbital rotation direction. There would not be much hope for anything alive on the surface.

Well considering the 9.0 earth quake in Japan shortened the rotation on its axis I would think its possible. I don't believe any of us would be around to worry about it or even be able to determine whether we were spinning in an opposite direction as we would be gone.

www.nasa.gov...

originally posted by: DonVoigt
I like the ice skater analogy, but let me throw another analogy in along with it, I see everybody looking at it from a perspective as though the asteroid can only hit from the side, but think more along the lines of English on a Que ball. If you strike a que ball from the top, a little offset from center, and you can make a Que ball start off going in one direction, but ends up going in another direction because of the force the impact has on a round objects mass.causing it to completly change it's normal rotational pattern. So I would say yes it is possible.

I allowed for that possibility in saying that if there was any effect on the rotation it would be temporary at best. The surface might take on the 'english', but the core would not and soon the force applied by the momentary contact would be overwhelmed by the constant contact and influence of the spinning core.

BYW, I have to say I like your analogy better. I was on the Men's Pro Billiard Tour as a playing professional. Any time billiards gets involved it puts a smile on my face. Thank you.

god this is a good one something I should know but didnt

is one theory with moon .. mars size body collided with earth it tilted the rotation and made it faster
but it didn't change it

Known as Theia, the Mars-size body collided with Earth, throwing vaporized chunks of the young planet's crust into space. Gravity bound the ejected particles together, creating a moon that is the largest in the solar system in relation to its host planet. This sort of formation would explain why the moon is made up predominantly of lighter elements, making it less dense than Earth — the material that formed it came from the crust, while leaving the planet's rocky core untouched. As the material drew together around what was left of Theia's core, it would have centered near Earth's ecliptic plane, the path the sun travels through the sky, which is where the moon orbits today.

ok so it just causes a tilt

that Venus rotates opposite is just from our point of view its exis flipped to 180 degrees
it rotates same direction but upside down making it look that way

www.scientificamerican.com...

Why do Earth and the other planets rotate at all? It will help to understand how our solar system formed. Almost five billion years ago, our solar system had its beginnings as a vast cloud of dust and gas. The cloud began to collapse, flattening into a giant disk that rotated faster and faster, just as an ice skater spins faster as she brings her arms in. The Sun formed at the center, and the swirling gas and dust in the rest of the spinning disk clumped together to produce the planets, moons, asteroids, and comets. The reason so many objects orbit the Sun in nearly the same plane (called the ecliptic) and in the same direction is that they all formed from this same disk. While the planets were forming, there was not much peace in our solar system. Clumps of matter of all sizes often collided, and either stuck together or side-swiped each other, knocking off pieces and sending each other spinning. Sometimes the gravity of big objects would capture smaller ones in orbit. This could be one way the planets acquired their moons.

i didn't know this I thought the collision started rotation
ooooppps

Here is a little jewel found out in webville.
It demonstrates the basic principles behind gravitational orbits, and is certainly fun to play with.

Gravity simulation

a reply to: nusnus

It could certainly affect the Earths rotation - maybe speeding it up or reducing it by a few micro-seconds .... But to be big enough to reverse rotation would mean there would be no Earth to rotate.... And I am not sure even Ceres is big enough to do that.