--- Chuck Hards <chuckhards@yahoo.com> wrote:
Kurt, what's Roche's limit for a lunar-sized mass in earth orbit? Could it even get that close in one piece? Or would it be "ring time"?
The physics of it are beyond my knowledge and capabilities. The Wikipedia entry for "Roche Limit" contains the computation for the Earth-Moon system (and other solar system body pairs) and gives a range between: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_limit#Roche_limits_for_selected_examples 9,495 km 1.49 Earth Radii - to - 18,261km or 2.86 Earth Radii So right now, we have a comfortable margin for error of 41:1 (~384km/9.5km). At 18,000km, I'd be more concerned about having to tie myself to a tree during the full Moon. -:) - Canopus56(Kurt) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com