4 ms·
Earth is a rotating reference frame. So, no, anything going high enough up won't come "straight down"
by harpiaharpyja 5y ago
Earth is a rotating reference frame. So, no, anything going high enough up won't come "straight down"
- habibur 5y agoWill come straight down even though the earth is spinning... unless atmosphere drags it aside.
- harpiaharpyja 5y agoNo, even if there were no atmosphere it would not. There's a point at which you can no longer ignore the rotation of the earth. Maybe the effect still isn't huge at the scales we're talking about but it's not straight up and straight down.
- AtlasBarfed 5y agoDoesn't the angular velocity of the projectile match the angular velocity of the launcher at launch?
- zapdrive 5y agoThat's incorrect. Anything released from earth carries the same inertial momentum. It's like when you throw a ball in a running car.
- dtparr 5y agoYou're not throwing the ball high enough in a car that the difference in radius from the center of the Earth makes a difference that you can detect. For objects above the earth's surface, the radius of the 'orbit' around the center of earth increases, and thus the 'forward' component of the velocity has to increase in order to stay over the same point on the earth. If you shoot something high enough straight up, it will land to the West of the point it was launched from. (This does ignore effects of wind and such, but I believe so did your argument).
- harpiaharpyja 5y agoIt's nothing like throwing a ball up from a running car. Look up the physics of rotating reference frames. I'm sure others can explain it better than I can.
- otras 5y agoI think that requirement of “high enough” is why I was surprised, given that a) it was a 1/3 scale model, b) it was a trial run, and c) things frequently go wrong. I guess sitting below it shows their confidence in its ability to get things up there! Edit: that being said, it does look like there is a slight angle.