Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: jccc on 14/05/2014 05:51:50
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If we connect a silver wire to the moon or use a big gun to shoot electrons, transfer enough electrons to it, would the negative charged moon attracting by positive charged Earth and getting closer?
In theory, it seems possible and cost not too much energy. There is a beauty lives on the moon.
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She is lonely and hot....
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Currently there is no type of wire that has strong of tensile strength to reach from Earth to the moon without breaking under its own weight, and you would still have to deal with the Earth spinning relative to the moon.
I suppose the big question is WHY?
If you don't change the kinetic energy of the moon, as soon as the energy differential would disappear, the two would return to their former orbits. It is quite possible that if you created a significant static charge on the Earth and moon, then it may start separating ions in the solar wind and cosmic rays to neutralize the potential difference, so to maintain the static difference, you would constantly have to add more energy.
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Thank you very much!
Very informative and right on everything within reality.
Why? Mining and land maybe. More realistic than find another Earth.
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Electron emitter on the moon, use solar energy to charge Earth atmosphere, seems could work.
Don't know how to deceleration, position the moon yet, but make it a geo satellite was the plan in mind.
Lot things need to consider, many jobs can be created, salute to the Earth Moon Project.
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It would probably be easier and cheaper to colonize one of the moons of Mars than our own moon, no matter how close we could make it. The problem is gravity, not distance.
I'm not sure how close you would want to make the moon, but if you're looking for a substantial change, it would wreak havoc on the Earth. Imagine submerging every coastal city twice a day during high tide... Also, depending on how it was done, changing the moons orbit could lengthen or shorten the Earth day by a non-negligible amount.
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An electron gun able to provide an electrostatic attraction much greater than the Earth-Moon gravitational attraction would require far more power than the world's current power consumption. If you forsee a future resource shortage, this will not prevent it!
The electrostatic field generated would make everyone's hair stand on end - until Earth's highly charged atmosphere made a quick departure for the Moon.
I think it would be much easier to send explorers to the Moon than bring the Moon down to geosynchronous orbit. (Plus a large mass in geosynchronous orbit would destabilise all of our geosynchronous satellites - except those at the Trojan positions.)
Most of the energy expenditure of a launch is required to get from the surface of the Earth to geosynchronous orbit, so getting the Moon down to geosynchronous orbit does not help very much.
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The ratio gravity and static force is like 10^33. Not too many tons of electrons need to be immigrant. Won't cost energy from Earth, solar powered moon gun.
Enough fund, scientists can fix the rest problems. Agree?
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You are correct that a small amount of charge can counteract a huge amount of gravity, but you still need to apply enough energy to accelerate the Moon towards the Earth. As you build up a charge separation between the Earth and the moon it becomes increasingly harder to send more current (think of it as charging a capacitor with a plate separation of 384000 km). The problem others in this thread have pointed out is that the charge will attract the Earth to the Moon as much as the Moon to the Earth, and because the Earth's atmosphere is more easily moved than the Moon, it would be moved the most (ie "to the Moon!")
And I'm not sure how many scientists you think it would take to change the tides...
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I would argue that once build enough charge to start the acceleration, no more charging is needed. The acceleration will only increase by the same amount of charges cus the distance getting smaller.
Also, the atmosphere is bond by Earth gravity and the charges will spread in the whole Earth.
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Put it above the Atlantic ocean, we'll have more dry land.
Maybe build a bridge, put your name on it.
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Electrons are steered by electric and magnetic fields
- That's how the old-fashioned Cathode Ray Tube TVs worked
- That's how particle accelerators work
- As the moon charges up with electrons, it will create an electric field which repels further electrons from striking the Moon. The repulsive electric field acting over the 380,000 km to the Moon will have a bigger effect than what you can achieve in (say) a 100km-long accelerator on Earth.
- The Earth's magnetic field will cause the electrons to move in a big circle, which will bring them back to Earth, canceling any positive charge building up on the Earth.
- It may be successful to accelerate positive ions, as they have more mass than electrons, and so will require a larger electric field to divert them.
For any charged particles which strike the Moon, they will charge up and levitate the Moon dust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LADEE#Atmospheric_glow) (as studied by the recent LADEE space probe). Because the Moon is not very conductive, this accumulated charge will accelerate the Moon dust, attracting it towards the Earth, and dumping it into Earth's atmosphere.
There is another challenge: particle beams travel a very short distance through Earth's atmosphere, as the particles quickly lose energy due to Cerenkov radiation, and collide with Nitrogen and Oxygen atoms in the atmosphere.
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evan_au bridge?