Hypothetical question: what if extra-terrestrials are coming to this planet and taking uranium....

So if ETs where coming here and trading or just taking some of our resouces like uranium could it make enough of a difference to change the Earth's orbit. I picked uranium because it is an element that might be useful to ETs and it is super heavy. Now if they are taking it, our planet would lose weight hence changing our gravity and that would result in a change in orbit as well as a change in the moons orbit. The numbers are not difficult to punch out to determine how much mass loss would be signficant, but in the large scale picture a little change now can mean a big change 1 million years down the road. So anyone think this is a possibility?





So the topic bar has a limit on characters.

[edit on 26-3-2005 by jrod]

[edit on 26-3-2005 by jrod]

No, it would have to be an incredible worldwide mining operation to have even the slightest noticeable effect on anything.

[edit on 3/26/2005 by djohnsto77]

And what if they were taking more than uranium, plus what we send into space, plus the possible loss of gasses we have due all of the burning of our resources. There must be a trail of gas and debris in our planet's orbit around the sun.

all the gasses from the resources we are burning stay in the atmosphere, not too mention the earth is being bombarded by alot of space debris daily...

do we even have that much uranium? like enough to make a difference if alf was taking it back to melmac??

Originally posted by jrod
So if ETs where coming here and trading or just taking some of our resouces like uranium could it make enough of a difference to change the Earth's orbit. I picked uranium because it is an element that might be useful to ETs

Maybe but if they were trading for anything then I would put forth water as being the most likely element and our best bargaining chip with ET's.

Originally posted by Urn
not too mention the earth is being bombarded by alot of space debris daily...

This is true.

The Earth gains mass each day, as a result of incoming debris from space. This occurs in the forms of "falling stars", or meteors, on a dark night. The actual amount of added material depends on each study, though it is estimated that 10 to the 8th power kilograms of in-falling matter accumulates every day.
hypertextbook.com...

10^8th kg = 100,000,000kg
or
220,462,262 pounds gained per day!

Even this is a minor percent of the total mass of the earth (10^25kg.) The total mass of earth gained every day from space dust by my calculations is:
0.0000000000000001% of the whole.

Also, you have to mine A LOT of ore to get uranium. If you've ever seen pictures of a uranium mine, they are HUGE open cut mining operations.

Uranium is a naturally-occurring element found at low levels in virtually all rock, soil, and water. It is considered to be more plentiful than antimony, beryllium, cadmium, gold, mercury, silver, or tungsten and is about as abundant as arsenic or molybdenum.
Uranium ore is rock containing uranium mineralization in concentrations that can be mined economically, typically 1 to 4 pounds of uranium oxide per ton or 0.05 to 0.20 percent uranium oxide.
en.wikipedia.org...

Uranium mining in Australia


[edit on 27-3-2005 by Seth76]

Ummm, no. We'd notice it if things started happening, like the planet being mined by space ships. A little change would be pointless, unless they had immense lifespans and a really bad sense of humor. Although, I wouldn't say no if they took our waste.

Originally posted by jrod
So if ETs where coming here and trading or just taking some of our resouces like uranium could it make enough of a difference to change the Earth's orbit. I picked uranium because it is an element that might be useful to ETs and it is super heavy.

Question: Why would they bother coming here to Earth.

Every (EVERY!) element found here on Earth can be found throughout the universe in varying concentrations. If they wanted this material (and some things that aren't found on Earth, like the material that makes up a neutron star), they they would simply go *there.*

Older stars have considerable amounts of heavy metals such as gold:
www.space.com...

Stories that the "Annunanki" had to come to Earth to make humans mine gold for them are absurd, given the higher concentration of gold elsewhere.

Originally posted by Byrd Every (EVERY!) element found here on Earth can be found throughout the universe in varying concentrations. If they wanted this material (and some things that aren't found on Earth, like the material that makes up a neutron star), they they would simply go *there.*

i've often thought that myself byrd, if an alien race needed gold (or any element for that matter), why waste the Resources coming all the way to earth? why not just go to a near by asteroid belt and mine to their hearts content?

earth gold is easily made into chains

Originally posted by pao
earth gold is easily made into chains

Presumably Gold is Gold is Au, despite your galactic coordinates.