If the force between an orbiting planet and the mass it is orbiting is constant (which it is), how can the distance between the two bodies vary (as it does)? I.e. how can planets hold elliptical orbits? Surely the equilibriate force wouldn't allow for variation in orbital distance?
I have this great app for my iPad called Quakewatch, and it shows a google earth (flat) map of the world with pins in all the locations of earthquake activity. But I never see quakes reported in the polar regions. Is this because there aren't any, and why not?
The water on Earth is supposed to be in a closed system : no matter how much gets drank, urinated, poured on plants, rained, drained into the sea, and all other things, the net amout of water on Earth will stay the same. But, since the beginning of the space age, we have been sending water up with rockets into space. How much water does the Earth lose every year in this way ?
Is it at all possible that the heat from the earth's molten core oscillates as it cools; and that this oscillation contributes to the heat in our biosphere? If so - is the heat from the earth's core in anyway significant in terms of adding energy to our biosphere?
Just by the way - if the core temperature does vary like a pendulum gradually declining and cooling - would this in any way contribute to earthquake clusters?
I read that an asteroid with a diameter somewhere between 8 and 18
metres passed within 12,000 kilometres of Earth on 27 June. To what
extent would its course have been affected by this brush with the
Earth's gravitational field?
As the Earth's Temperature rises, this should result in more evaporation especially from the oceans which means more cloud formation. This will have two effects : 1. More cloud cover resulting in a relatively lesser exposure of Earth's Surface to direct sunlight and 2. Greater Precipitation - The rains cooling the Earth's surface and Snowfall returning the ice cap to the poles. Further some CO2 also dissolves and returns to the Earth reducing the load of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.