http://ask.metafilter.com/tags/planetaryDestruction Questions tagged with 'planetaryDestruction' at Ask MetaFilter. Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:19:56 -0800 Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:19:56 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://ask.metafilter.com/31481/What%2Dwould%2Dhappen%2Dto%2Dthe%2Dmoon If there's anyone here who groks physics and math and astronomy and astrophysics here's a great big what-if for you. Pretend the planet Earth was destroyed. Smashed into chunks ranging in size from grains of sand up through mountains. Presumably the atmosphere would be lost to space, much of the former planet would fall slowly into the sun or flee outward. What was left would form a new astroid belt, depending on how the actual destruction was caused it would probably become a planet again, at some point. Assuming that nothing directly impacted the moon, what would happen to it? Most of the earth's mass would still be around, just spread out a bit more. Assuming the moon's orbit didn't intersect the debris, would it continue to orbit? Would it fall towards the sun? Fly away from the sun? What? tag:ask.metafilter.com,2006:site.31481 Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:19:56 -0800 astrophysics planetaryDestruction what-if Grod