The Roche Limit

What happens when you fire the Earth into the Sun's roche's limit ?

The Earth starts stealing mass from the Sun. The Earth rips apart. The Sun rips apart. The Earth steals mass from the Sun.

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1 solution

Ethan Lay
Nov 16, 2018

Due to gravity and tidal forces, the Sun will attempt to pull the Earth to itself, while the Earth attempts to orbit around the Sun. The movement of both the Earth and the Sun has an effect in the end result. The Sun has the greater gravitational pull, so instead of the Earth ripping the Sun apart, the Sun rips the Earth apart. Eventually, the answer is 'The Earth rips apart.'

I think you mean the sun has a greater gravitational pull. And this is due to mass not size, radius, or density.

Jeremy Galvagni - 2 years, 6 months ago

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Okay thank you

Ethan Lay - 2 years, 6 months ago

Isn't your options 2 and 4 same?

A Former Brilliant Member - 2 years, 6 months ago

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I guess so.

Ethan Lay - 2 years, 6 months ago

Sun and Earth pull each other with equal gravitational pull!!!!!!!

suresh jh - 2 years, 3 months ago

The Roche limit is where tidal forces overcome the cohesion of a planet or moon. This depends on the strength of the material of which the orbiting body is composed. For instance, a solid sphere of iron can orbit closer to a massive star without disintegrating than can a loose aggregation of pebbles or ice such as a comet. Newton showed us that the gravitational force between 2 bodies is proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers of mass. Thus when an orbiting body gets quite close to a massive central object the force on its side closer to the star considerably exceeds the force on its far side. If this difference of gravitational forces is greater than the gravitational and cohesive forces keeping the near side material bound to the orbiting body, the near side will separate and either fall into the star or orbit separately from its parent body. This phenomenon explains the existence of the rings of Saturn and the asteroid belt.

Steven Adler - 11 months, 2 weeks ago

This sounds like a bizarre apocalyptic scenario.

Antimatter Bee - 7 months, 2 weeks ago

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