Solar System Butterfly Effect

[Deepwater6]

Would anyone know what would be the outcome if one of the planets or their moons was dislodged or broke apart. If one of the moons from other planets was somehow shot into space would it have a butterfly effect on all the other planets in the system?

 

I have heard of the troubles we would have on our planet if it happened to our moon, but is there any influence from bodies in space on our orbit. Does the sun trump all in this scenario and it wouldn't matter either way? If not, and it would have an effect then shouldn't we been concerned with large meteors and comets striking these moons or planets just as much the Earth?

 

 

One other thing I'm interested in is mining the moon. When the technology becomes prevalent and many countries start drilling holes into the moon how can we be sure it's not going to split. There are stones on our planet that can be broken with just a etch and a tap. With the greed that mining companies use to go after resources here are earth would they even pause to do a study? Would there be anyone to have oversight over this? Were not exactly talking about territorial waters with this.

[CraigD]

Would anyone know what would be the outcome if one of the planets or their moons was dislodged or broke apart. If one of the moons from other planets was somehow shot into space would it have a butterfly effect on all the other planets in the system?

Unless the pieces of the planet or moon were given enough velocity to escape one anothers’ mutual gravitational attraction, breaking a moon or planet apart wouldn’t have any effect on the other planets. This is because, as Newton showed in the 17th century, the gravitation affect of a broken up body on bodies outside of it is the same as of the body compacted together in the usual planet-y way. Eventually, the broken up planet/moon parts would fall together, producing a body with the same mass as the original, minus a small fraction for fragment given enough velocity to escape.

 

According to current theory and observation, planets and moons getting blown apart and falling back together was fairly common in the early, formative days of our solar system. Some giant planet moons appear to be “mixed up rocky snowballs” due to this, while our own Moon is believed to have formed from debris blasted from Earth as the result of a collision with a Mars-size body about 4,500,000,000 years ago.

 

I have heard of the troubles we would have on our planet if it happened to our moon, but is there any influence from bodies in space on our orbit.

Again, as long as it wasn’t physically removed, or much altered in its current orbit, blowing the Moon into pieces, which would in short order re-coalesce, wouldn’t have much long-term effect on the Earth. The main impact (pardon the almost unavoidable pun) would be from the small fraction of the Moon’s mass ejected as fragments, some of which would likely strike the Earth as large meteorites.

 

One other thing I'm interested in is mining the moon. When the technology becomes prevalent and many countries start drilling holes into the moon how can we be sure it's not going to split.

You can’t split a moon you can a gemstone or a rock, because it’s not really solid, but rather multi-layered, densely packed “gravel pile”. Any attempt to do so would just push the regolith and underlying bedrock around.

 

Even if you could split the Moon if half with some fantastically powerful cutting device, the two pieces would simply fall back together due to the attraction of gravity.

 

Moon and planet splitting make for some entertaining movies and TV, but these stories are scientifically nonsensical.

[Deepwater6]

OK, I see what you mean by the gravitational effect being the same together or apart, but for the sake of argument lets say Jupiter, Mars or Venus dissapeared next week. What effects would there be in the regards to Perturbation? Could it pose a risk for us to get into an eliptical orbit or if I read it correctly in Encyclopeia.com "Perhelion". I can't think of what might make them dissapear, but you get the idea.

 

The way I have always perceived the solar system is like a Trampoline tarp with the planets depicting different size bowling balls on it displacing the tarp. If we took one away it would effect where and how the others traveled. Is this in any way comparative?

 

Also while reading up on this I came across the Lorentz/Fitzgerald contraction although this particular explanation was a little above me would that play any role here?

 

thx

[Cyberia]

Another way of looking at it is that if a planet is on our side of the sun or on the opposite side of the sun, it has no gravitational effect on the Earth, as the planetary alignments do not have any effect either.

 

The sun is a thousand times the mass of Jupiter, and far closer to us that any of the larger planets are. The only other body that affects the Earth is the Moon as it is so close.