What would happen if...

[llivinglarge]

We launched Gaspra into Venus's orbit and Vesta into Mercury's orbit using a giant railgun?<br /><br />We moved Ceres into Earth's orbit?

 

[llivinglarge]

No, I mean in sustained orbit around the planet, not in the orbit path of the planet.

 

[oscarb44]

What if pigs could fly?

 

[Leovinus]

What would happen next would be that we'd hop in our starship and go flying off to other stars. Because if you have the power to move asteroids to new orbits, you have the power to go to more remote and interesting places. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>

 

[cygnusx1111]

What would happen if earth's orbit had a higher eccentricity(sp)? Say the closest point was around the orbit of venus and the farthest point was around the orbit of mars?<br />ignoring gravitational issues;<br />Would the oceans boil away at perihelion?<br />Would life survive?<br /><br />

 

[nexium]

At present Earth is closest to the Sun in early January, so summers in the south sub tropic zone would kill most of the life there, but 70 degrees c is unlikely even in shallow ponds. It might take a century to melt all of Antarctica after which the summers would be still hotter thoughout the Southern hemisphere. The oceans would rise about 600 feet due to the melting of ice above sealevel and expansion of the warmer ocean water. The ocean currents would be changed during the ice melting phase. Air circulation would change drasticaly during the ice melting phase and there would be new changes in air and water currents as the ice caps disapperared. The far north part of the north temperate zone and arctic zone would have much milder winters, and long, cooler summers. Carbon dioxide and water vapor in the air might double on the average. Summers in the North temperate zone might be colder than winters, because Earth is about twice as far from the sun in July. The tropic zone and sub tropic zones would also have dangerously high temperature in January and Feburary. The year would increase to almost 400 days = 33 day months. It might take 10,000 years until there was only one thousand cubic miles of the 4 degree c water at the bottom of the oceans. Please embellish, refute and/or comment. Neil

 

[larper]

Actually, my gut reaction is that the planet would be "cold".<br /><br />It spends so much time at distances greater than our current orbit that most water would freeze. Would we spend enough time at distances closer to the sun to have a significant amount of water melt? I would say no, otherwise, comets would not survive more than 1 or 2 orbits.<br /><br />I think life would have a real tough time on such a planet, but not impossible. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong><font color="#ff0000">Vote </font><font color="#3366ff">Libertarian</font></strong></p> </div>

 

[dragon04]

The weather would be more extreme perhaps, but I don't know about "cold".<br /><br />The Southern Hempisphere (relative to the Earth's current axis tilt) would get the worst of it for sure.<br /><br />I would guess that the Northern polar ice cap would eventually melt completely. Ocean currents would be very strange. The reduction in the salinity of the oceans in general could pose big problems for marine life if the change in orbit was a rapid one.<br /><br />You can't really compare a comet's orbit to the stated orbit in the context of the thread. Comet Halley, for example, has an orbital period of 76 years, not 400 days.<br /><br />Another thing to consider is the amount of land mass in Northern arctic and sub arctic areas compared to the Antarctic.<br /><br />As the high Northern latitudes thawed out, the Earth's largest landmass would be reflecting less sunlight away.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <em>"2012.. Year of the Dragon!! Get on the Dragon Wagon!".</em> </div>