Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 10/8/2004

Question
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Followup To
   Nothing less than a proto planet or a body comparable to the
   moon could really "knock" it off!

Okay, I just might be going for this then, remains one more question though.
Would an incident like that literally break earth, or just nudge it?
I really have trouble fathoming sizes like that.

Thanx again, your last answer already helped alot.
Grreetzz,
- Eddie

Answer
Hello eddie,
Sorry to have kept you waiting!
It appears the site was inaccessible for a couple of days to us from the place where I am currently staying.

It wont break the earth apart, it will nudge it.
But a nudge of that scale DOES have its consequences.


there will be two main consequences.
1 - All life will be extinct. I MEAN ALL!
2 - The earth will shift to a new orbit depending on angle
   of hit! If the hit slows it down, the earth will move
   sunwards. else mars-wards!

Other "minor" consequences are:-
1 - The present moon may careen out and escape earth   
   altogether or "join forces " with the colliding body
   and wallop the earth! [As it is, it is already
   spiralling away at 4 cm per year approx. due to
   transfer of earth's angular momentum by gravitational
   coupling (tidal interaction)].
2 - A part of the crust will be peeled off, flash melted
   and form a ring of debri around the earth like that of
   saturns. In a few million years THAT will form into
   another moon of different size than the current one.
   And it will have a different orbital plane.
   Not to mention the flash vaporisation of the oceans!
   These will then proceed to rain down ceaselessly for
   thousands of years, revealing an earth locked in an ice
   age. the reflective clouds having deprived it of a heat
   source for a prolonged duration.
   [Just one Pinatumbo volacanic explosion reduced the
   atmospheric average temperature by 1 deg c.]
   The conflagration will also reduce the oxygen in the
   atmosphere. and thus reduce the atmospheric pressure
   STP.
3 - The tidal period of the oceans will be timed by this
   new moon.
4 - Life will have to start anew form the virus upwards,
   or some anaerobic bacteria embedded in the topsoil,
   and ocean algae will restart life.
5 - In only another 600 million years a new carbon based
   intelligence will emerge in the new atmosphere.
   It will have to be hot blooded so as to have
   the mobility and survivability of its predecessor, but
   its shape will be completely alien to us.
6 - The "rogue" that causes this whole thing will rebound
   and careen away either sunwards to be gobbled up by
   the "big boss" the sun, or form another asteroid belt
   either between earth-venus or earth-mars!
7 - Last but not the least, there will be two
   geological "boundaries", the ancient 65 million old KT
   boundary marking the Cretacious - tertiary transition
   designating the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the
   new one, marking "our end"!
You see each event has its "cascade effect"! As an SF writer
one only needs to make a choice "which cascade" to start, and then follow it up meticulously.
Jayen