What would happen if the Earth and the Moon were moving at the same speed?

Answer 1

Tides would be lower. _________ Also, the moon would have to really speed up in its orbit around earth, or 1) the moon's orbit would become very eccentric, or 2) the moon would come crashing down to earth with catastrophic results; all life on earth would end.

Answer 2

It effects it by pulling the Earth's water toward it. Thus, creating waves. The moon keeps revolving around the Earth and pulls more and more water toward it. That's why the waves are bigger at night.

Answer 3

There would be no significant change in Earth's orbit.

As the Earth orbits the sun, it posseses a quantity known as 'Angular Momentum'. This is designated as 'L'.

This quantity is defined as:

L = mvr

where m is the mass of the orbiting body - in this case the earth, v is the orbital velocity, m is the mass and r is the radial distance from the sun.

Angular momentum is a universally conserved quantity. This means that while it may change in one part of a system, a compensatory change must also occur elsewhare in that system. Hence if one parameter is changed then so must another to maintain the conservation of the angular momentum.

It follows from this that all else being equal, if the mass (m) is doubled, then there would have to be a combined change in velocity and radial distance to the value of a reducing factor of 2.

This would result in a new orbital radius and orbital velocity resulting in a different year length.

The increase in mass would have a greater pull on the Moon and hence change the length of the 24 hour say as well.

Answer 4

Good question. If the earth doubled in size, the mass increases and when the mass increases, the gravity increases and when the gravity increases the orbit becomes larger and so, the Earth may or may not (we can't be sure of anything in astrophysics) go farther from the sun.

Answer 5

If the moon became larger, there would be no effect on tides unless its mass also became larger.

There would be no effect on the seasons at all within several human lifetimes, whether or not the moon's mass changed.

Answer 6

The Moon will be pulled closer to Earth, reducing it's orbit to about half [I think] of original.

Answer 7

at a time it was and it created a tide much much lager than the tides these days

Answer 8

If the Moon were orbiting faster than it does, it would fly off into space.

Answer 9

The height of the tides would have been SLIGHTLY higher, but not by much.

Answer 10

If the Earth were suddenly become more massive, the Moon would fall from orbit and eventually collide with the Earth. Orbits are a delicate balance between gravity and inertia.