If we took billions of tonnes of earth from one side of the globe and put it all on the other side?

Question

Would the planet develop a speed wobble like an unbalanced wheel? Could this alter our orbit?

Answer 1

it can never unbalance the earth or change its orbit. But if you change the shape of the earth from a round to a different shape by doing so, then it will affect the rate of the day and night comming. Also can change the 24 hours to a different time of day.
But you can never change the center of gravity of it from its original position of space or change its orbit from inside.
And after a many millions of years, it will again become a ball because it is the most stable form for a mass to rest.
If you want to change the orbit of the plannet, you have to guide a big asteroid to hit earth or take a big mass from earth out and push in a different direction. Each spacecraft do so when going out of earth, but in a negligible amount.

Answer 2

The wobble is not very likely. The earth is like a syrup ball with a very thin hard skin. The skin lays almost loose on the syrup. If the weight on the crust is unevenly distributed, this will be too small to really influence the rotation of the earth core, but the crust itself might shift over the core of the earth.
There are theories such a thing has happened at least once in the earth past and it's called a crustal-shift. The last time could have been around 12,500 years ago, resulting in the end of the last ice-age. This crustal shift could happen if there is a large amount of ice unevenly built up on the earths surface. During the last ice-age the geographic north pole was in north-east Canada (science has evidence it was the magnetic north pole at that time) and a large part of North America was a huge ice-cap. This ice cap kept growing southward over land, much more than over the salty oceans, until the weight distribution caused the complete crust to shift about 30 deg. southward over the earths core. This theory is highly controversial, but there's a lot of circumstantial evidence backing up this theory. Some of it: strange climatological changes from around that time, a lot of volcanic and other "crustal" activity in that time, super fast frozen mammoth in the north of Siberia and other animals and plants that only live in much warmer climate than a cold almost arctic climate, historical monuments pointing to celestial constellations that seem to have mysteriously moved (they haven't moved, but human perspective has moved), mythology telling about a large event on earth with a lot of volcanic eruptions blinding the sky, but when they could see the stars again the sky seemed to have moved about 30 deg. (which is consistent with the latest scientific records of "pole-shifts"), there's an old map, the "Piri Reis" map, composed centuries ago from all kinds of ancient maps, (just Google it) showing the complete islands of Antarctica without ice.
The man who made this crustal-shift theory up is Charles Hapgood, and Einstein acknowledged in this book that this event could actually have happened (not that it happened).
Some scientists are predicting an "ordinary" magnetic pole-shift soon, though nobody can say how soon, (but it could be disastrous enough in itself if it happens) because the earth magnetic field has been showing a lot of strange anomalies over the last decades and it's strength is decreasing drastically in various places on earth. But some people think the whole crust will shift again too soon.

Answer 3

I'd guess at: yes, there would be a wobble like from an unbalanced tyre. Although over the course of a hundred or so years it would probably peter out, as the earth would settle down, moving back around the globe.

You'd also get loads more volcanoes on the excavated side of the Earth, as the crust would be much thinner.

Answer 4

Good question. Your best answers are from vijay and kosala. The rest need to go back to their textbooks.

A wheel can be unbalanced because its axis of rotation is fixed by the axle bearings. The earth's axis is not fixed, so it will always rotate about its own centre of gravity (or better: centre of inertia). That, by definition, means it can only ever be in balance.

Never mind a few billion tonnes of muck; if you squeezed and twisted the whole earth into a massive balloon animal it would still rotate in balance. The climate would be up the creek to the extent that we'd all be dead, but we wouldn't wobble in our graves.

Answer 5

It would barely alter the earth's orbit around the sun at all, though the action of moving the material and the change of centre of gravity could cause a wobble around the current path. eventually the earth would resume its original spherical shape un gravitational forces, centrifugal forces, tectonic plate movement and so on.

Answer 6

No. Try this with a small mass, and you develop what are called "products of inertia", which will affect how the body rotates. But the earth's rotation is so slow, and its gravitational tendency to assume a spherical shape is so high, that products of inertia would have negligible effect.

Answer 7

Considered opinion suggests that the moon was once a piece of earth blasted off by a giant meteor so I think the answer is no not a lot.

Answer 8

Billions of tonnes would be but a pinprick compared to the weight of the planet.

Answer 9

probably not but if we took more probably! we would have to take all of the earth from one side of the world to the other for the orbit to change!!

Answer 10

no, but you'd get a lot of blisters, n a hell of a bill, from mc'caddam.
its a thought, but maybe you could suggest the idea to the government it'd solve the problems of unemployment.