Poll of the Day > Is it possible for a planet to have 2 axis of spin?

(+) Yeah! (+)

all the planets I see only spin in one direction

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I'm trying to imagine this. However, the best I can come up with is something that is 100% gas moving only fast enough that it doesn't lose its spherical or elliptical shape, and the gases collide with little chance of mingling from all of the momentum and pressure. I imagine explosions on the regular, and such a "planet" would not last long before it loses its form.

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Wouldn't the axes even out and then combine into one axis somewhere in the middle

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaotic_rotation

Interesting, I didn't know about any of that

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Well, I didn't necessarily mean random - but a planet that has both a north-south pole AND an East-West pole (they don't necessarily have to be 90 degrees from each other)

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there's a youtube channel that answers things like that, professionally

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Nightwind posted...

there's a youtube channel that answers things like that, professionally

Thanks ?

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I think you're thinking of Uranus which axis is flipped completely onto the side. The north and south poles are where the equator should be.

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We had 3 axis spin back in the 40s

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As an aside, In Risk of Rain 2 why would anyone obliterate themselves?

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Lokarin posted...

As an aside, In Risk of Rain 2 why would anyone obliterate themselves?

obliterating yourself will get you some lunar coins when you start your next run

if you are carrying the beads of fealty and you obliterate you fight a secret boss

also you unlock a new skin for most characters if you obliterate yourself on monsoon difficulty

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Nightwind posted...

there's a youtube channel that answers things like that, professionally

So tell him the channel name.

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Treating the object as a particle. The answer is no. Just like an object cant be moving left and right at the same time. Angular momentum is a vector quantity. The momentum vectors would combine to somewhere in the middle, similar to velocity vectors.

But an object is made up of many particles. Imagine a sphere of water surrounded by a plastic shell. The plastic shell can move a different direction than the water inside if you roll it for a while, then drop and reverse directions. It takes the water a bit to catch up.

They can but they don't because all solar system rotation was started by one swirling ball of material which compressed into planets.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_precession

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MeteoricBurst posted...

I think you're thinking of Uranus which axis is flipped completely onto the side. The north and south poles are where the equator should be.

Also, Venus spins the opposite way. But they believe its upside down. They think it got hit hard, as they found a spot where something big hit it...
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotation_around_a_fixed_axis

"According to Euler's rotation theorem, simultaneous rotation along a number of stationary axes at the same time is impossible. If two rotations are forced at the same time, a new axis of rotation will appear."

LinkPizza posted...

Also, Venus spins the opposite way. But they believe its upside down. They think it got hit hard, as they found a spot where something big hit it...

I'm sure the namesake-Goddess feels more than tilted about that to this day.

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rjsilverthorn posted...

"According to Euler's rotation theorem, simultaneous rotation along a number of stationary axes at the same time is impossible. If two rotations are forced at the same time, a new axis of rotation will appear."

yeah if you add rotations together you end up with a third rotation, not two separate rotations.

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Lokarin posted...

Is it possible for a planet to have 2 axis of spin?

Seems unlikely. The conflicting torque would probably rip any planet apart, even a gaseous one.

Even if it was physically possible, the erratic wobble you'd get from the conflicting spins would probably disrupt any orbit and you'd wind up having it spin off into space and crash into its sun or eventually drift off and lose its rotational momentum entirely.



Lokarin posted...

Well, I didn't necessarily mean random - but a planet that has both a north-south pole AND an East-West pole (they don't necessarily have to be 90 degrees from each other)

There's literally no planet that has an East or West Pole, because of how scientific definitions work. Every planet that spins, no matter HOW it spins, always has a North/South Pole (and the North is always the one that points in a specific direction based on the galactic disc - I forget the exact details).

I've actually looked this up before, because I thought it would be neat to come up with a planet with an East/West axis for a fantasy setting (Piers Anthony actually did this in his Apprentice Adept series), but because of how planetary classification works from our perspective, there's no such thing.

I think the closest you get is if you look up thought exercises along the lines of "What would happen if the Earth turned 90 degrees tomorrow, so the Poles wound up on the Equator?" Which can actually make for a pretty interesting visualization (if we assume the new Poles are the points where the Prime Meridian and International Date Line cross the Equator, you wind up with a world where Europe and most of Northern Africa become the new Antarctica, your new Equator would run North-South through the Americas and Asia, and New York would be a city in the tropics).
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A planet doing an infinite tre flip would be too gnar for existence to handle.

blu posted...

Treating the object as a particle. The answer is no. Just like an object cant be moving left and right at the same time. Angular momentum is a vector quantity. The momentum vectors would combine to somewhere in the middle, similar to velocity vectors.

But an object is made up of many particles. Imagine a sphere of water surrounded by a plastic shell. The plastic shell can move a different direction than the water inside if you roll it for a while, then drop and reverse directions. It takes the water a bit to catch up.

According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly.
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Revelation34 posted...

According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly.

Except that isn't true.

https://www.businessinsider.com/bees-cant-fly-scientifically-incorrect-2017-12

rjsilverthorn posted...

Except that isn't true.

https://www.businessinsider.com/bees-cant-fly-scientifically-incorrect-2017-12

Google what I posted.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Seems unlikely. The conflicting torque would probably rip any planet apart, even a gaseous one.

Even if it was physically possible, the erratic wobble you'd get from the conflicting spins would probably disrupt any orbit and you'd wind up having it spin off into space and crash into its sun or eventually drift off and lose its rotational momentum entirely.

There's literally no planet that has an East or West Pole, because of how scientific definitions work. Every planet that spins, no matter HOW it spins, always has a North/South Pole (and the North is always the one that points in a specific direction based on the galactic disc - I forget the exact details).

I've actually looked this up before, because I thought it would be neat to come up with a planet with an East/West axis for a fantasy setting (Piers Anthony actually did this in his Apprentice Adept series), but because of how planetary classification works from our perspective, there's no such thing.

I think the closest you get is if you look up thought exercises along the lines of "What would happen if the Earth turned 90 degrees tomorrow, so the Poles wound up on the Equator?" Which can actually make for a pretty interesting visualization (if we assume the new Poles are the points where the Prime Meridian and International Date Line cross the Equator, you wind up with a world where Europe and most of Northern Africa become the new Antarctica, your new Equator would run North-South through the Americas and Asia, and New York would be a city in the tropics).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_HAB_Theory


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