Posts Tagged ‘gravity’
What would happen if you fired a rifle from space?
If you fired a rifle from space (say, a .308), what would happen to the bullet? Would it just keep going forever and forever until it hit something? Would it travel faster if fired in the opposite direction of the sun or toward the sun?
What about if a rifle were fired straight up from the surface of the moon? Since there is no atmosphere and the gravity is so much weaker, would it go into space?
What is the cosmic topography of space and why can't we see it?
It is very difficult to conceive of space; it is not physical, has no physical reality, and yet it is affected by objects and gravity (!?). If space is curved like a Mobius strip or a spheroid, would that mean that space would have to have more than 3 dimensions? After all, where would the contours of space be visible since in 3 dimensional space we cannot see warping of space or twists and turns of space.
Whatever happened to having space stations rotate to create a sense of gravity?
In the movie "2001 A Space Odyssey" excellent visuals are given of a rotating space station designed to create faux gravity. Why, with the International Space Station having been in orbit so long, have the not designed at least a segment of it to rotate. For that matter, there seems to be so much angst about the effect of weightlessness on a Martian Voyage, that could be easily rectified by at least a section of the vehicle rotating. The principle seems very basic and not especially expensive. What is the roadblock?
How does centrifugal force work in space?
In so many movies and books, gravity is simulated in space with centrifugal force. I don ‘t exactly understand how that would work. I understand it’s the concept of the friction of the floor pulling you and causing you to gain inertia and move with the platform, but before you touched a surface, wouldn’t you just be "floating" there as the station would spin around you? (This is assuming the station is in orbit). Or, for example in 2001, the Jupiter 1 had a spinning platform that allowed an astronaut to run. What forces him back to the floor after he pushes off?
How many miles would a space shuttle have to go above earth to be completely unaffected by earth's gravity?
Assume that the space shuttle is just an average NASA shuttle. By "completely unaffected" by gravity, I mean that it would be able to just keep on going at the same speed indefinitely [assuming it never came into contact with other gravitational sources], because there was no friction or gravity [for example, if you jumped off the shuttle at whatever altitude you specify, you would just keep on going forever].
okay, I know that nothing can be completely unaffected by gravity. Just give me the altitude where the effect of EARTH’s gravity will be virtually zero/negligable, and you could do the things specified in the question.
What is does space mean in astrophysics and how can space "bend"?
Matter occupies physical "space." Volume is a measure of the amount of space an object occupies. How could the fringes of the universe be expanding into non-space? How can one possibly explain the creation of space by the expansion of the universe? If matter can neither be created nor destroyed, how can space? If a spaceship were able to reach the outside of the universe and actually surpass it completely, venturing beyond the universe into "nothingness," what would happen? Would the spacecraft create more space due to its own gravity or would it simply occupy more space that was already there? Would it be destroyed or create some kind of logical paradox?