Is it possible to make the earth go farther from sun and so make the planet cooler?

[pluto2]

Is it possible to make the earth go farther from sun and so make the planet cooler?

[cosmictraveler]

If you take away enough of its mass then it would be lighter and wouldn't be pulled as close to the sun as it is now. It would drift away from the sun as time goes by but that would take many thousands of years.

[pluto2]

If you take away enough of its mass then it would be lighter and wouldn't be pulled as close to the sun as it is now. It would drift away from the sun as time goes by but that would take many thousands of years.

But how can we take away enough of its mass?

[Xelios]

Even if it were possible, and it's not, it would be a horrible idea. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm afraid of with all this global warming hype, that some crack team of politicians and scientists will come up with an "ingenious" way to alter nature and end up screwing everything up even worse.

Wouldn't that be a sad footnote in human history. People panicked, pulled off some daring scheme to avert the disaster they were so sure was coming, and ended up destroying their planet because they didn't fully understand the problem before acting.

[clusteringflux]

"Is it possible to make the earth go farther from sun and so make the planet cooler? "


The answer is no.

[Myles]

But how can we take away enough of its mass?

Send it to Mars in rockets !

[pluto2]

The answer is no.

But why isn't it possible?

[Syzygys]

Because of the same reason why Pluto isn't a planet.

[cosmictraveler]

But how can we take away enough of its mass?

That can be done by sending materials to other planets or moons to inhabit them. It will take allot of material from Earth to develop a colony on the moon and if it gets large enough that would reduce Earths mass but increase the moons mass. Allot of mass has to be removed from the Earth to make this at all possible.

[spidergoat]

It is possible, just as the existence of God is theoretically possible, but practically probably not.

[pluto2]

It is possible, just as the existence of God is theoretically possible, but practically probably not.

But why isn't it possible?

[Myles]

That can be done by sending materials to other planets or moons to inhabit them. It will take allot of material from Earth to develop a colony on the moon and if it gets large enough that would reduce Earths mass but increase the moons mass. Allot of mass has to be removed from the Earth to make this at all possible.

You could start by removing mass from the Vatican.

[draqon]

everything is possible. The question is, is this movement of Earth further from the Sun a justified act. Now how could you move it? Lets think in perspective of Earth first...some ideas come to mind such as using another mass to create a gravity assist to move it further...perhaps creating a very dense object and mass full and using it to move the Earth were we need it to be through slow process. Another concept is to not have the Earth move but rather have the Sun decrease its radius by what means I have no idea...but a possible scenario would be to propel have the helium formation reaction changed somehow... We could also have Earth be as a spaceship by itself, having a propulsion drive as large as Earth. All of these ideas are def. out of our technological reach, but if you can dream it you can do it. Right? Right.

[Fraggle Rocker]

Moving the earth would require a tremendous amount of energy. There's no way we could get our hands on that much energy. We could burn all of our fossil fuels in one big flash and I still don't think we'd have enough to move a planet more than a few meters out of its orbit in a thousand years. I'll let you check me and do the math. It will be an interesting exercise for you and you'll learn a little more about this subject.

Not to mention all that energy conversion would make the earth even hotter and defeat your purpose.

[Myles]

Archimedes said: " Give me a lever long enough..."

[draqon]

Archimedes said: " Give me a lever long enough..."

actually it wouldnt work...the tensile strength of this lever...even if its carbon nanotubes would cause it to snap...

[Myles]

actually it wouldnt work...the tensile strength of this lever...even if its carbon nanotubes would cause it to snap...

Ah, but the lever would be in compression

[draqon]

Ah, but the lever would be in compression

so it will collapse under its own weight...

[Myles]

so it will collapse under its own weight...

How heavy would the lever have to be to collapse under its own weight ?

[draqon]

How heavy would the lever have to be to collapse under its own weight ?

it depends on the tensile strength and the force exerted on it.