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?
Lv 7
? asked in EnvironmentGlobal Warming · 6 years ago

Being that planets don't have their own propulsion systems, where does the energy come from to produce so called Milankovitch cycles?

Are Milankovitch cycles nonsense? If you research them at Wiki you will see the theory has more holes in it than a moon sized block of Swiss cheese. Planets don't have their on propulsion systems like a spaceship. They cannot alter their orbits without the energy coming from somewhere. Where does the energy come from to cause so called Milankovitch cycles?

Milankovitch cycles at Wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles#...

Update:

Oops - that should be: Planets don't have their OWN propulsion systems like a spaceship.

Update 2:

Newton's Laws of Motion basically says, a body will remain at rest or in a state of uniform motion unless acted upon by force. To substantially move the Earth closer or further from the sun would require an additional force beyond the gravity and inertia currently maintaining it's uniform motion.

None of you guys agree with me, but I think Newton does. It was an interesting thread, I remain a skeptic of orbital Milankovitch cycles.

9 Answers

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  • Kano
    Lv 7
    6 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    Well I agree it does have some holes, but I think the inclination is the main effect, the propulsion is gravity, have you never seen a spinning top wobbling on it's axis, also there are the gravitational effects of the other planets.

    MAXX the motion of our Earth was set up when it was created, it would take a force to change it, no astronomical body has a perfectly circular orbit they are all elliptical to some extent, and the axis angle is common nearly all planets have some angle, and the wobble is quite normal too.

    Actually our orbit is deteriorating we are moving away from the sun at 15cm per year, just as the moon is moving away from us, it is to do with tidal forces.

  • 6 years ago

    The energy comes from the original rotational energy that the cloud of gas which collapsed to form the solar system had. And that energy is the angular momentum which was conserved and transferred eventually to all objects in the solar systems which formed.

    The Milankovitch Cycles are simply perterbations to the orbit and rotation of the Earth over many thousands of years.

  • Bruce
    Lv 5
    6 years ago

    The energy of the orbits do not change. The axis if rhe Earths's rotation wobbles about every couple of dozen thousands of years, It's eliptical orbit precesses.

    Because of the differences in reflectivity/absorbtion of sunlight by land/ocean, the energy of the Sun is more/less retained by the Earth.

  • 6 years ago

    It is only necessary for the total energy of the solar system to remain constant. One planet can swap energy with another without breaking any physical laws.

    Think of the man-made satellites that gain energy by sling-shotting round a planet. The satellite gains energy but the planet loses it. It is all done by gravity.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    6 years ago

    Let's see if I can come up with an analogy for you.

    Imagine a bunch of people dancing around in circles. And let's say they're all only putting enough effort into their dancing to overcome friction and keep going in the same circle they're in. If they never did anything else, they'd just keep going around and around in the same circles.

    And, just so they can interact without having to be close enough to run into each other, they all have long cords tied to their wrists. Occasionally, they're grabbing each other's cords. Sometimes, they just pull each other a little closer, and sometimes they grab release in such a way that another dancer is flung a little further away. But, in any case, those dancers will not be going in the perfect circles you'd expect from the energy they are putting into dancing, because they keep tugging each other around.

    And, from one of your comments, you seem to think you'd need a really large orbital change to cause a large climate change. You wouldn't, both because the Earth is a pretty delicately-balanced system (so that even a small change can make a big difference), and because of feedbacks.

    Source(s): Please check out my open questions.
  • 6 years ago

    It doesn't take extra energy, it takes resonances between the major gravitation sources in the solar system - same reason Near Earth objects have such weird looking orbits.For the same reason, there is no general solution to the orbital three body problem.

  • Anonymous
    6 years ago

    The big bang, approximately 13.798 ± 0.037 billion years ago. [1]

    Young earth creationist [2] like yourself would not be able to accept Milankovitch cycles [1], as the time scale of the Milankovitch cycles exceeds the age in their creation myths. Therefore in your world, unlike the normal world, it is again the science that is the myth.

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  • ?
    Lv 7
    6 years ago

    The forces set in motion by our creator.

  • ?
    Lv 7
    6 years ago

    gravity and inertia.

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