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Re: Asteroid Problem



Ludwik, I don't understand your second sentence: "In this case . . ."
Furthermore, I don't understand your argument about the asteroid one
earth-diameter away. What direction wrt the earth-moon line are you assuming
the asteroid is located?

Paul O. Johnson

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ludwik Kowalski" <kowalskiL@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>
To: <PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu>
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 12:20 PM
Subject: Re: Asteroid Problem


Our moon is about 30 earth-diameters away. In this case
components of forces exerted on any little part of our planet
are very small in comparison with perpendicular components
(on my picture where the moon-earth line is horizontal).
Thus lunar tidal forces (gradient of F) are essentially
horizontal (on my picture). But this would not be so for
an asteroid located only one earth-diameter away from
the center of our planet. Would the vertical force
components reduce the tidal effect? I would expect so.

And I hope we will never have a chance to test this
experimentally for a very massive asteroid. Can this be
tested on a very small scale? For example, in solid tides
mutually induced in two large cannon balls.
Ludwik Kowalski