Re: Thermal Energy - thermalization of rotational energy

[Hugh Haskell <hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM>]

At 12:33 -0500 03/06/2002, Michael Edmiston wrote:
> If we have a rotating cloud of matter that is going to collapse (by gravity)
> into a solar system, the angular momentum will be conserved.  However, as
> gravity takes it toll and the star forms and the planets form, some of the
> angular momentum shows up as rotations of the planets as well as revolutions
> of the planets.  This means some of the original rotational energy ends up
> as planetary rotational energy as well as planetary revolutional energy.
>
> Isn't this a "thermalization" of the bulk rotational energy of the system
> into rotational energy of individual pieces without external interactions?
>
> Here's another astronomy example.  Jupiter's moon Io is heated by passing
> "organized rotational energy" into thermal energy via gravitational stresses
> on Io as it revolves.  Isn't this also an example of thermalization of
> rotational energy without external interaction?
I'm not sure what you mean by "thermalization" here. The gas cloud
has some net angular momentum (or perhaps parts of it large enough to
form various planets have new angular momentum)--it is rotating. that
angular momentum will be conserved as the cloud condenses to planets,
etc., and will appear as the angular momentum of the planets, etc. If
the overall angular momentum of the cloud was zero, but there were
pockets of the cloud that had some net angular momentum, then even if
individual planets, etc., have angular momentum, the solar system as
a whole should not, to the angular momenta of the planets, etc.,
should add to zero.
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://haskell@ncssm.edu>
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

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