0

When dinosaurs roamed the Earth was the Earth rotating faster creating less gravity to allow for their size? How fast could have the Earth spin and be slowed down by an asteroid to the current rotational speed not completely wiping all life out? How much would 100 kg weigh then?

With the asteroid the opposite direction of the Earth's rotation unlike the moon's hard interior that the asteroid would just punch through the crust into the mantle allowing the Earth not to instantly be affected by the change in rotation. Also it was theorized that the moon was a large piece of the Earth liquid mantle removed by an asteroid.

enter image description here

Muze
  • 1
  • 5
  • 13
  • 46

1 Answers1

8

According to this problem set from Goddard Spaceflight Center in the upper Triassic the day was $23.5$ hours. The rotation speed was then $\frac {24}{23.5} \approx 1.021$ times higher. The equatorial speed of the earth is now $465.1$ m/sec. The centripetal acceleration at the equator is now $\frac {465.1^2}{6378100}\approx 0.034$ m/sec, which reduces $g$ by $0.3\%$. In the upper Triassic, the acceleration would only be $4\%$ of that higher, so about $0.035$ m/sec$^2$. It is not enough to matter.