Questions tagged [rotation]
Questions regarding the action of or an object rotating along an axis.
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Why does Saturn have a more prominent equatorial bulge and higher flattening ratio than Jupiter despite rotating slower?
It is my understanding that a planet's equatorial bulge is caused by the centrifugal force produced by its rotation, and the faster a planet rotates the bigger the bulge and flattening ratio of a ...
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Lights moving fast and in a straight line coming from the northwest headed southeast tonight at 9:15CST [duplicate]
What is going on tonight?
Bright lights in the same high orbit moving very fast across the night sky from Northwest heading southeast...then 10 minutes later same line but far fewer almost in ...
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1answer
48 views
Calculating the orientation of the night sky
How would one calculate the rotation/tilt of the earth to simulate the Night Sky in a self-written tool or app. I am trying to built an app for my telescope to show me on my phone what I am looking at....
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Why is rotational motion absolute, is the universe spinning? [duplicate]
When considering any object, one can say its translational movement is relative, depending on the point of view or reference frame adopted. If it moves at 1/4c relative to some observer, one might say ...
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I sighted a group of satélites moving in a interesting pattern in a way I never seen from this area where I live is this posible? [duplicate]
I live in the rural area of the state of São Paulo in brasil (mata atlántica). the sky is absolutely clear, when there is no clouds you see the milky way perfectly and a sky full of stars. I just ...
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1answer
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How is Uranus' north pole defined?
The rotation axis of the planet Uranus is tilted by 98° compared to its plane of orbit. This means that the north pole of Uranus is "under" the ecliptic compared to the north pole of other planets.
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2answers
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Can you provide a visual description of the sun rise?
The Sun rises in the east only two times a year. The other days, the Sun rises in the east, but a little bit to the north, or to the south. How can you know the degree of how much north or south it is?...
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1answer
242 views
Definition of Rotation versus Revolution
Let there be a planet for which the duration of a solar day is equal to a year around the sun such that:
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Moon rotation tidal braking
Do we know if the moon had an initial rotation or did it coalesce tidally locked. If it had an initial rotation how long would it take to become tidally locked?
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1answer
61 views
How can a star's rotation speed be measured?
How can a star's rotation speed be measured?
If stars could be resolved, then you could use the Doppler shift to see that half of the star is bluer and the other half is redder, but stars (other ...
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2answers
130 views
When was the longest day on record?
The Earth's rotation is gradually slowing down. It was significantly shorter in the prehistoric past, but now we need to add a leap second every few years and we've not yet had to take any back. In ...
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2answers
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Which celestial body's length of day is closest to that of Earth?
I know the planets Mars and Eris are among bodies that have the most Earth-like mean solar days (about 24.67 and 25.9 hrs). Among moons there is Mimas of Saturn which has one of the most Earth-like ...
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1answer
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How to calculate the true length of day on a celestial body?
When I only know the sidereal rotation period, how do I determine the true length of day on a body?
We know the Earth's sidereal day doesn't have full 24 hrs unlike the true length of day. It's ...
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1answer
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If Jupiter would stop rotating, would its atmosphere become homogeneous and single coloured?
Looking at pictures of Jupiter, there are many different colours and patterns. I imagine that the rotation has much to do with this, since there are horizontal "bands" across the planet along the ...
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1answer
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How does the surface gravity on Mars vary between the equator and its poles?
A day on Mars is similar in length to the Earth's day. On Earth, due to rotation, the surface gravity varies from 9.78 m/s² (0.997 g) on the equator to 9.832 m/s² (1.003 g) on the poles. I wonder how ...
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1answer
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What are the smallest star clusters affected by Galaxy Rotation Curve?
We all know that Milky Way exhibits Galaxy Rotation Curve which makes it rotate very differently that Newtonian mechanics would expect. But Milky Way is a pretty large galaxy, and the one we only see ...
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4answers
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How are galactic rotation curves determined from radial velocity measurements?
I have been reading about the deviation of galactic rotation curves from the predicted Keplerian curve to a flat curve at large galactocentric distances.
They were the first indicators of the ...
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0answers
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Doppler Shift Vs Gravity Assist for Frequency Shifts from Rotating Galaxies
Frequency Shift of Light Leaving Rotating Galaxies:
Differences in Doppler Shift due to Radial Velocity
Vs
Frequency Shift due to Gravity Assist from a Rotating Galaxy
A description of estimating ...
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1answer
63 views
How to convert from FELO-HEL to Km/s?
I am using DS9 to calculate the rotational velocity of a galaxy. I have 21cm cube and I used DS9 to plot this graph
I do not understand what is FELO-HEL! and I want to convert the units from FELO-...
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1answer
127 views
What is a black hole's “shadow” and the best angle to view it to measure the spin?
This excellent answer mentions several ways to try to observationally measure the spin of a rotating black hole. The third one is intriguing, but I don't understand how this works:
The spin of a ...
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0answers
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Why does the outside edge of a Kerr black hole ergosphere rotate at the same speed as the inner edge?
Reading through the Wikipedia on a Kerr black hole ergosphere, and this nice question on the maximal spin rate of a black hole leads me to ask: why does the outer edge of the ergosphere rotate at the ...
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1answer
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Uranus' axis of rotation-when discovered?
Who discovered it, and how was that accomplished. I had assumed it was known before Voyager 2 arrived at the planet since it isn't mentioned in JPL voyager 2 Uranus Approach
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2answers
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Do we know of any tidally-locked planets with atmospheres?
If not, is there any reason such a planet couldn't exist?
I ask only because that planet would literally have a twilight zone and I want to know that that's a thing somewhere.
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2answers
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What would change if Venus rotated at a speed and direction similar to Earth?
I am interested in two aspects of this question. Imagine that Venus had a similar rotation speed and the same direction of rotation that we have here on Earth.
What would change for Venus itself? I'm ...
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1answer
113 views
How to calculate the orientation of planets at current epoch
For an application I am working on I am creating a simulation of the solar system. In this simulation, a user needs to be able to 'move' to any position on any planet, and have the sky be accurately ...
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0answers
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What maintains the high orbital eccentricity of many exo-planets near their sun?
Over the last decade we've discovered that many exoplanets not only have highly eccentric orbits, but also orbit very close to their sun. This is true of many classes of stars.
I definitely have a ...
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1answer
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Why doesn't the solar azimuth vary uniformly
For the past few dates, I've been observing the rotation of the earth around the sun and noticed that the azimuth of the sun doesn't vary uniformly throughout the day. The azimuth varies faster during ...
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1answer
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Moon's revolution around the Earth and it's rotation around it's axis? [duplicate]
Does Moon rotate around itself while it makes one revolution around Earth or not?
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0answers
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How to caclulate the chinese Three Gorges Dam impact on Earth rotation? [closed]
According to this January 2005 NASA JPL News item NASA Details Earthquake Effects on the Earth, the Three Gorges Dam has slowed down Earth's rotation by 0.06 microseconds per day.
Having that weight ...
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1answer
2k views
Are these real paths of planets as traced from Earth?
Few days a go, I came across these two pictures of paths of planets as observed from Earth. They have a perfect geometric shapes. Actually, to me they look so beautiful and perfect, that they appear ...
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0answers
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How does a spinning black hole affect space-time compared to a non-spinning black hole?
I often see questions on this site that only apply to non-spinning black holes and often wonder how the answer would be different for a spinning black hole. As the title says, what are the major ...
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1answer
188 views
Why is Earth's rotation considered fast?
I'm currently reading Atom (Krauss book), and in chapter 11 there is this text:
This collision can explain many things, including the high rate of spin of the Earth (the grazing collision would ...
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1answer
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Are there known objects rotating at close-to-light speeds?
For example, $0.1c < v < c$? Is this actually possible?
Background: is that true that the black hole in the center of the Milky Way rotates once per 20 minutes?
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1answer
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The equation for calculating how many times Earth (or our solar system) has revolved around the Milky Way
I have seen it said on Quora and Reddit that it's about every 220-250 million years to go around the Milky Way from Earth. Wondering what the rough equation is for calculating it. That is, I guess, ...
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1answer
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Why does the Sun have different day lengths, but not the gas giants?
The Sun's rotation period varies from about 25 days at the equator to about 38 days at the poles. As I understand it, this is because the Sun is not solid, and because of the way centripetal force ...
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4answers
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Official degrees of earth’s rotation per day
What is the official degree to one decimal point please, of the earth’s rotation in one single day. Can it be confirmed that it is exactly 360.0 degrees using official data? Thank you in advance.
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1answer
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What causes random irregularities in the earth's rotation accounted for by dynamical time
I read in a book that the earth's rotation sometimes shows unpredictable irregularities(not caused by precession, nutation, tidal forces) which are accounted for using dynamical time. What would be ...
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1answer
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Rendering asteroid orientation as seen from Earth
I am writing a program to render an asteroid as seen from various parts of the solar system. My goal is to roughly reproduce the image of Cacus according to information on its DAMIT detail page.
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2answers
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How do we know that an exoplanet is tidally locked to the parent star?
Often in discussing exoplanets we hear that they are close to the parent star (usually a red dwarf) but then there's a caveat that the planet is tidally locked to that star and that that fact severely ...
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1answer
151 views
Is it possible for stars not to rotate?
I'm just curious about that the existence of non-rotating stars. Is it physically possible for a star not to rotate at all? Does magnetic braking eventually stop the stellar rotation?
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1answer
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Will Earth at some point stop rotating anti-clockwise, stay still, and then rotate clockwise? [duplicate]
Will Earth at some point stop rotating anti-clockwise, stay still, and then rotate clockwise?
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If Earth suddenly stops rotating, will be thrown at 465 m/s? [duplicate]
If Earth suddenly stops rotating, will be thrown at 465 m/s ?
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1answer
101 views
How a star's rotation affects a star in the main sequence?
I searched and have found that the questions mainly focus on neutron stars, white dwarves and black holes. This was not what I looked for.
Basically, the bigger the star's mass is, the more intense ...
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2answers
114 views
What is meant by sun's path through zodiac
I read somewhere that sun's daily course and complete cycle is visible in the ecliptic belt by zodiac constellations.
I didn't understand what that means closest I could find online is: https://www....
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1answer
335 views
Why is the shape of the Moon spherical? [duplicate]
The Moon does not rotate on its own axis. If I am right, for something to gain a spherical shape it has to rotate on its own axis. We know that the Moon does not rotate on its own axis. How can this ...
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3answers
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Why don’t we feel the Earth rotating beneath us?
I’m not sure all of the details in the experiment but basically it went as follows. Someone marked their location of take off in a hot air balloon and went straight up in the air. They stayed ...
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1answer
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Cycles that are longer than the year, but less than 1000 years
Wondering what primary astronomical cycles there are that are greater than a year (which is a cycle around the sun), but less than 1000 years-ish (on that scale). There is the cycle of the moon phases ...
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2answers
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If a giant object would approach the Earth, would Earth start to turn faster or slower while the object starts to become nearer and nearer?
I am asking myself this question: if a giant celestial object would approach the Earth, would Earth start to turn faster (then day duration would be diminished) or slower (day duration increased) ...
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3answers
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Does the rotation of galaxies precess?
Does the axis of a galaxy as a whole "wobble" the same way that the Earth does? If so do we have any idea how much or how fast the Milky Way is doing so?
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1answer
691 views
Can one detect from earth that angular momenta of its axial rotation and its orbital rotation are “almost parallel”?
I mean that the angle between these angular momenta is acute as opposed to obtuse (23.5 and not 180-23.5), so that the rotations are "roughly in the same direction".
Related but distinct question -- ...
