All Questions
Tagged with planetary-science rotation
8 questions
4
votes
2
answers
116
views
Does rotation on their axis cause winds in gaseous planets?
As far as I know, as planets rotate around their axis, they can influence winds but not cause them (like the Coriolis effect)
However, does this apply only for rocky planets? Do rotation alone in ...
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5
votes
2
answers
684
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Can a tidally locked planet sustain a magnetic field
The vast majority of stars in the Galaxy, and probably the universe, are red dwarfs. The habitable zones of these stars are very close to the stars themselves, often within what would be Mercury’s ...
- 477
18
votes
4
answers
8k
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Do planets lose energy while rotating?
When a planet rotates/spins, is it true that the planet loses energy? If this is true, then where does this energy lost by the planet go?
My confusion may be in the basic understanding of the ...
- 949
11
votes
2
answers
3k
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How scientists find the direction of rotation of planets?
How do we know that Mercury, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune rotate counterclockwise and Venus, Uranus, and Pluto rotate clockwise? How do scientists determine the direction of rotation of ...
- 949
8
votes
1
answer
708
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Why do the Sun and gas planets rotate faster at equator than at poles?
From this site, it states that:
The Sun spins faster at its equator than at its poles.
I have also read somewhere that the gas giants (gaseous planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) also ...
- 949
1
vote
1
answer
273
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What else can we learn from a Foucault pendulum? Have they ever been used to determine anything more than that the Earth rotates on its axis?
Background
Each semester we have to make up projects for each course. This semester I took Cosmology and Astrophysics and we covered a vast amount of topics, from luminosity of stars to Einstein's ...
2
votes
2
answers
658
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Could a magnetosphere be created for Venus by recreated by spinning-up the planet to a 24 hour day?
If Venus in it is current state, started rotating at the same rate as Earths 24hrs rotation, would it develop a magnetic field of roughly the same strength as Earth's?
If so, would that help in any ...
- 143
9
votes
1
answer
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Do some comets spin? If so, how fast?
The GIF below is copied from my question earlier What might a CN filter be in the context of comet watching? Is it showing dust, or gas, or something else? where I'd said:
In this post on the website ...
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