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To: Joe Bonforte
If Earth collided with a Mars-sized planet, it's not clear to me how Earth could still have a near-circular orbit around the sun. I would think any such collision would seriously alter the orbit, perhaps even out of the plane of the ecliptic.

It doest have a near circular orbit. Also the earth's orbit is on a slightly different plane of most of the other planets. I think Pluto is the only other planet with a tilted orbit plane. Thank public schools for the dumbed down science books for thinking the orbit is circular.

The fact that the moon always faces the earth on one side and faces away on the other, should have been enough proof that it came from the earth, weather spit out from some huge explosion or a collision with a very large object.

22 posted on 08/23/2006 12:30:35 PM PDT by ItsTheMediaStupid
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To: ItsTheMediaStupid
The fact that the moon always faces the earth on one side and faces away on the other, should have been enough proof that it came from the earth, weather spit out from some huge explosion or a collision with a very large object.

Not quite. The reason the Moon's rotation equals its period is something called tidal lock. Eventually (in about 50 billion years) the Earth would keep the same face to the Moon as well. However, solar physics dictates that the Sun will consume both prior to this event.

28 posted on 08/23/2006 12:51:51 PM PDT by RadioAstronomer (Senior member of Darwin Central)
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To: ItsTheMediaStupid
"The fact that the moon always faces the earth on one side and faces away on the other, should have been enough proof that it came from the earth, weather spit out from some huge explosion or a collision with a very large object."

Uh, no offense, but if your physics knowledge is at the level that you would claim this, I don't think I want to be taking your opinion on the matter very seriously.

And I don't know what the public schools are teaching these days, but NASA says:

This morning at perihelion both hemispheres were 147.5 million km from the Sun. That barely differs from the greatest distance, 152.6 million km in July, which astronomers call aphelion.

I figure that at about three percent variation from perihelion to aphelion. That's close enough to call near-circular in my book.

71 posted on 08/23/2006 6:00:00 PM PDT by Joe Bonforte
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