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How long would it take for the Moon to fall down?
If the moon suddenly stopped orbiting the earth it would start to fall due to gravitational attraction. The moon would contact the earth in about 4.6 days going very fast.
What if the Moon stopped orbiting?
If the Moon simply stopped dead in its orbit, it would no longer be orbiting the Earth. Instead, it would start falling towards the Earth. Some hours later, the Moon impacts the Earth at about 10-11km a second. This probably reduces it to a molten ball of rock without oceans or atmosphere.
Is the Moon falling back to the Earth?
The reason is that the Moon is never still. It constantly moves around us. Without the force of gravity from the Earth, it would just float away into space. This mix of velocity and distance from the Earth allows the Moon to always be in balance between fall and escape.
How long would it take the Moon to crash into Earth?
This is manifestly impossible without shattering the Moon, but in that case, the Moon would indeed hit the Earth. The time for the impact would be about 1/4 of the Moons current orbital period, which is to say about a week. That’s not quite 1.5 hours (NoAnswer’s answer) but also not a week (Steve Linton’s answer).
How long has the Moon been orbiting Earth?
27.3 days
The Moon’s orbit around Earth has a sidereal period of 27.3 days….Moon.
| Designations | |
|---|---|
| Orbital period | 27.321661 d (27 d 7 h 43 min 11.5 s) |
| Synodic period | 29.530589 d (29 d 12 h 44 min 2.9 s) |
| Average orbital speed | 1.022 km/s |
| Inclination | 5.145° to the ecliptic |
What would happen if the moon suddenly stopped orbiting the Earth?
If the moon suddenly stopped orbiting the earth it would start to fall due to gravitational attraction. The moon would contact the earth in about 4.6 days going very fast. For the earth it is about 64 days to contact the sun. Method. …integrate to get time as a function of distance between centres of bodies.
How long does it take for the Moon to orbit Earth?
At that point, one lunar orbit (one month) will take 47 days. Earth’s rotation period will also be 47 days, meaning that one side of the Earth will face the Moon at all times, just as one side of the Moon currently faces the Earth at all times.
What happens to the Moon in the future?
When you try to get into the details of what exactly happens to the Moon in the future, however—then things get complicated. Right now, the Moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of about four centimeters per year, due to the tidal interaction between the Earth and the Moon.
Is the Moon going to leave us?
The simple answer is: The Moon is probably never going to leave us. There is no well-defined scientific scenario in which the Moon ever escapes from the Earth, and even the long-shot possibility emerges only long after Earth has been largely destroyed by the Sun.