Could space mining alter earth orbit?
Wouldn't be a bad idea to do space mining to create products on earth on the long therm?
Does not hose minerals have weight and could change earth net mass and therefore it's orbit?
Could also impacts on landing alter earth orbit?
This question arraised when reading this other question about mining in space from in this sub: [https://lemmy.world/post/24125154](What is currently holding us back from mining in space?)
The earth gains somewhere between 40,000 and 100,000 tons every year, just naturally due to space debris. But I've also read that that's offset by atmospheric gasses leaving the atmosphere, so the earth is actually losing mass.
But there's also the question of how much of that mass entering or leaving is actually affecting the system mass. Any additional mass entering orbit of the earth and moon should affect the earth's orbit as well.
And then, there's the "slingshot" effect where items traveling /with/ the earth's orbit can steal orbital speed from the earth, or when traveling /against/ the earth's orbit can add orbital speed to the earth.
So, the answer is: it's complicated.
I personally don't think it's much to worry about. Before we add enough mass to the earth to affect the orbit, I think we might notice a gravitational change.
Anything you do in space will alter the Earth's orbit by some amount. But unless you strip mine an small planet out there, you won't get enough material for the change to matter.
I guess it could alter earths orbit when you reach a mining contingency that isn't comparable 0 to Earths Mass of 5,9722x1024kg
Makes me wonder how much mass we’ve lost to space with all of the shit we’ve flown to and let in space.
how much mass we’ve lost to space with all of the shit we’ve flown to and let in space.
Shooting from the hip here, but probably a tiny, minuscule fraction of a fraction of a percent. I'd venture a guess we've lost more mass in atmospheric gases being ionized and stripped away from solar radiation than we have launched from the surface.
Short answer is probably likely:
Humans are pumping out so much groundwater that it's changing Earth's tilt
> "Earth's rotational pole actually changes a lot," Ki-Weon Seo, a geophysicist at Seoul National University who led the study, said in a statement. "Our study shows that among climate-related causes, the redistribution of groundwater actually has the largest impact on the drift of the rotational pole."
Side note:
Please consider spell and grammar checking your comments and posts with a word processor like OnlyOffice or LibreOffice
I wouldn't say likely without some revolutionary new propulsion device. We can pump water out of the ground fairly easily but transporting material through space and then landing on the planet is still in science fiction territory.
oh derp
thanks for commenting! Reading the post again my initial answer is real stupid😬
Overthinking. Just mine a bunch of iron, or gold, or whatever you can get and drop it in big chunks right on the planet. Don't bother trying to land the stuff. Aim for Mar A Lago. Then drive in and surface mine the payload.
Well that sounds like an inconvenient truth that we should ignore for 100 years until it becomes a seemingly insurmountable problem so we can just shrug our shoulders and say there is nothing that can be done.