If there was an immovable object in space that had a chain that hung down to earth...?

Question

and you were hanging at the bottom of it how fast would the Earth move below you? Would it be safe to let go?

Answer 1

Immovable with respect to what? If it is immovable with respect to the sun, you would be yanked away from earth at about 68,000 MPH as the earth continued orbiting the sun. If it is immovable with respect to the earth, the atmosphere is blowing it in the direction of the earth's rotation. At the equator, it's moving over a thousand MPH relative to the ground. Hold on as long as you can in the thousand-MPH wind! At the poles, it hangs limp, and it's perfectly safe to let go.

Answer 2

Let us understand that nothing can remain immoveable in space. Everything has to move and stay in dynamic equilibrium. When the dynamic equilibrium is disturbed the object will follow Newtons first law and move away in a straight line path. Your assumption is not right. Even so when hung by chain you are in the proximity of Earth. You will be subject to Earth's massive gravity and will be carried along. I do not suppose the chain will be strong enough to withstand Earth's gravitational pull and will break[I am assuming the other end is fixed-somehow]. If you let go, you may become a satellite around Earth or fall to Earth and if lucky to fall in an ocean or tree-top you will survive alright with broken bones. It would also depend on the height from which you will fall. If you are high enough, you may loose your consciousness due to lack of oxygen. There can be infinite possibilities in this hypothetiacal question.

Answer 3

The question is ill defined.

There is no such thing as an immovable object in space really. Everything is orbiting or going around something somehow.

You can have something that is stationary relative to the earth's surface. That is called a geostationary orbit. A satellite over the equator at a certain height does this. Your satellite TV for example.

If it had a chain that hung down (that was immune from drag and had no mass, so it didn't bring the whole thing down), that chain would always touch the same point on the equator. You could let go just fine.

That's the idea of the space elevator, by the way. The problem is that any chain strong enough (even with carbon nanotubes) is going to have mass and drag, so it would be a huge, huge engineering feat to get it to stay up.

Answer 4

It is very much a question of what you mean by "immovable". You can pick any frame of reference you please to be the zero motion frame, and would then need to determine the earth's motion with respect to that frame. Suppose that you hung your chain from a satellite over the equator in geosynchronous orbit. Then the chain would reach the earth at a fixed point on its surface, and you could crawl up the chain to haul a load into space. This dodge has been the theme of a number of science fiction stories; the only limit on its practicality is finding a strong enough material for the chain.

Answer 5

The circumference of the Earth is roughly 25,000 miles. if you divide 25,000 by 24, you get 1041.66. This means that the earth rotates at approximately 1042 miles per hour in order to rotate 1 full turn in 24 hours. Do not let go of the chain!!!!

Answer 6

It wouldn't be safe to hold on either. The earth moves around the sun, and the sun moves along in the galaxy. You'd be breathing vacuum in a matter of seconds.

Answer 7

A spot on earth would pass an object not under the influence of our gravity or motion at about eleven hundred miles per hour.

Answer 8

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970401c.html At over 1000 mph, heck no, it wouldn't be safe. Of course, earth is also hurtling through space in it's orbit, so you wouldn't be safe anyways.