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Astrophys Space Sci (2008) 314: 35–39DOI 10.1007/s10509-007-9731-1
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
On the planetary acceleration and the rotation of the Earth
Arbab I. Arbab
Received: 12 October 2007 / Accepted: 13 December 2007 / Published online: 22 January 2008© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2008
Abstract
We have developed a cosmological model for theEarth rotation and planetary acceleration that gives a goodaccount (data) of the Earth astronomical parameters. Thesedata can be compared with the ones obtained using space-base telescopes. The expansion of the universe has shown tohave an impact on the rotation of planets, and in particular,the Earth. The expansion of the universe causes an acceler-ation that is exhibited by all planets.
Keywords
Planetary acceleration
·
Variable gravity
·
Universe expansion
·
Hubble
1 Introduction
It has been understood that the impact of the universe expan-sion on our solar system is negligible. This is however notvery true. The consequences of the expansion on the Earth-Moon system are in the measurable limit. The evolution of the Earth-Moon system was understood to be mainly due totidal evolution. We have recently shown (Arbab2003) thatthe present acceleration of the universe is due to the ever in-creasing gravity strength. Very recently, we have found thatthe evolution of angular momenta and energy of the Earth-Moon system can be accounted as due to cosmic expansion
A.I. Arbab (
)Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Universityof Khartoum, P.O. Box 321, Khartoum, Sudane-mail: aiarbab@uofk.eduA.I. ArbabDepartment of Physics and Applied Mathematics, Facultyof Applied Sciences and Computer, Omdurman Ahlia University,P.O. Box 786, Omdurman, Sudan
(Arbab2005). This system is affected by the perturbationdue to other planets or the Sun. The cosmic expansion mayshow up in raising tides in this system. The influence of the expansion induces a change in the value of the gravi-tational constant appearing in Kepler’s third law and New-ton’s law of gravitation. At any rate, the total cosmic effectis embedded in the effective gravitational constant (
G
eff
.
)that expresses all gravitational interactions with this system.For a flat universe, if gravity strengthens, expansion has toincrease, in order to maintain a flatness (equilibrium) con-dition. The increase in gravity strength will show up in theevolution of the rotation of the Earth-Moon system. Astro-nomical investigations show that the preset Earth’s rotationis decreasing, so that the length of the day is increasing at arate of 2 msec/century. Astronomical analysis could not ac-count for the entire rotation of the Earth and one can onlyextrapolate the present rate. If this rate in not linear such anextrapolation can be dangerous. Laser ranging experiments(LRE) show that the Moon is receding as it acquires angularmomentum due to the spin down of the Earth rotation. Thatis because the total angular momentum of the Earth-Moonsystem remains constant during its evolution. Moreover, theMoon exhibits some kind of an anomalous acceleration, thatcan be measured.We however provide in our present study a different ap-proach. The data we obtained are in good agreement withgeophysical and palaeontological findings. We attribute theevolution of the Earth-Moon system to the cosmic acceler-ation. Cosmic effects might appear in different forms, viz.,making tides or other perturbations. Recent findings basedon optical observations in the solar system suggest that allplanets might accelerate in their orbits. About thirty yearsago, the first indications of planetary drifts away from theirpredicted ephemerides appeared in the literature, and more
36 Astrophys Space Sci (2008) 314: 35–39
recently (Kolesnik 2000) reported that planetary drifts, de-termined from optical observations, may possibly be accel-erations that are proportional to their motions.
2 The model
We have recently developed a model that accounts for thepresent cosmic acceleration (Arbab2003). We have shownthat, in the present epoch, the gravitational constant (
G
) in-creases with time. However, its exact time dependence is notwell determined form cosmology. One has to resort to othersource of information to uncover it. This is found to be thepast Earth rotation.It is known that the Earth rotation is decreasing with timesince the Earth was formed. Scientists attribute this to thetide rasing force by the Moon on Earth. Accordingly, theday is lengthening at a rate of about 2 millisecond/century.Hence, the Earth is losing angular momentum and the Moonmust increase its angular momentum, as due to the angu-lar momentum conservation of the Earth-Moon system. Thisfact implies that the Moon must be receding from the Earth.We know that the motion of the Earth around the Sun con-serves the angular momentum. One can satisfy this conser-vation by requiring the Earth to accelerate in its orbit aroundthe Sun.The scale expanding cosmos (SEC) predicts that thepresent acceleration of the Earth is about 2.8 arcsec per cen-tury squared (Kolesnik and Masreliez2004). However, onecan attribute the deceleration of the Earth rotation as dueto cosmic expansion. Other effects like the variation of thelength of day is normally thought as due to the tidal dissi-pation raised by the Moon on the Earth. Other findings at-tribute this deceleration to the interactions of the Earth core.However, in the present scenario we only know the totalcontribution to the Earth-Moon system that we trust to bea consequence of cosmic expansion. This cosmic expansionis counteracted by a growing gravitational force between ce-lestial objects (galaxies, stars, planets). Thus a gradual in-crease in gravity force is the main consequence of the astro-nomical phenomena we now come to observe. Geologistsobserved that the length of the day has not been constantover the past million years and that the number of days ina year, days in a month and the distance between Earth andMoon are all variable too. These variations can be calculatedand their corresponding values can then be confronted withobservational data.We suggest that the cosmic expansion has an influenceon the Earth-Sun-Moon system and similar systems. For abound system, like the Earth-Sun, to remain in a bound statedespite the cosmic expansion (possibly accelerating), grav-ity strength has to increase to compensate for the cosmic ex-pansion consequences. This strengthening of gravity wouldmanifest its self in some aspects, e.g., tidal acceleration ororbital acceleration. We anticipate the Earth-Sun distance tochange with cosmic time too. This means in the remote pastthe planets were at different positions from the Sun whenthey were formed.The viability of this model will depend on the future as-tronomical and geological findings that will emerge. Thedata we haveobtainedare not extrapolationsof present ones,but rather emerge originally from using the General Theoryof Relativity (GTR), and therefore are reliable. They rep-resent empirical relations that account for the rotation andevolution of the Earth-Sun system and similar systems. Wecan not by just extrapolating the present data over very dis-tant past understand the full history of the Sun-Earth-Moonsystem. A complete understanding requires a full theory. Assuch a theory does not exist at present we can only relyon empirical formulae as those of ours. Bear in mind thatour model is so far the only model that provides a temporalevolution of the Earth-Moon-Sun system parameters. We re-mark that the prediction of these formulae is overwhelming.Theoretical prejudice favors that the Earth primordial rota-tion is about six hours. Only our model can give this value!From the angular momentum
(L)
and the Kepler’s thirdlaw, one finds
L
3
∝
G
2
T,
(1)
L
∝√
Gr,
(2)and
L
∝
Gv
−
1
,
(3)where
T
is the length of the year measured in terms of thenumber of days,
v
is the orbital velocity of the Earth (planet)rotation in its orbit,
r
is the Earth (planet)-Sun distance, and
G
is the gravitational constant. Since, the angular momen-tum of the Earth-Sun system is constant, the length of theyear (in seconds) is fixed and hence one finds that
T
∝
G
−
2
,
(4)
r
∝
G
−
1
,
(5)and
v
∝
G.
G
is constant then
T
,
r
, and
v
are constant too. However, there is a possibilitythat
G
might have been changing appreciably over cosmo-logical time. In this case if one knows the way how
G
variesthe variation of the distance,
r
, the orbital velocity,
v
andthe number of days in a year,
T
can be calculated. Thus thevariation of
G
could mimic tidal effects (changes) to which
Astrophys Space Sci (2008) 314: 35–39 37
scientists now attribute to. Newton’s gravitational law canstill formally hold even
G
changes with time. However, theequivalence principle of general theory of relativity is bro-ken. The variation of
G
may be attributed to an existence of dark matter coexisting with normal matter in our universe.Its effect is to make the gravitational coupling (Newton’sconstant) appear to be increasing. The effect of a little nor-mal matter and an increasing gravity in a universe may beequivalent to that of more matter and normal gravity in theuniverse. We dictate here that Newton’s law of gravitation(and Kepler’s law) to be applied to an evolving local system,like the planetary system, viz. Earth-Moon-Sun system.Our present study relies on a general form for the vari-ation of
G
with cosmic time (Arbab2003). In this sce-nario a gravitating body interacts with an effective gravita-tional constant
G
eff
.
which differs from the ordinary New-ton’sconstantweknow.Wehave,inparticular,anincreasing
G
=
G
eff
.
at the present epoch, viz.
G
eff
.
=
G
0
t t
0
n
(7)where
n >
0 is some constant to be determined from exper-iment and
t
0
is the age of the universe. Here
n
determinesthe properties of the cosmological model proposed. In thissense gravity couples, in an expanding universe, with
G
eff
.
rather than with
G
0
. In effect one replaces
G
in all formulaewith
G
eff
.
. In an expanding universe the Earth couples withthe rest of the universe with this effective value. Such a cou-plingsupportstheideaofMachthattheinertiaofanobjectisinfluenced by the rest of matter in the universe. In an evolv-ing universe this effective constant induces a cosmologicaleffect on planetary systems that the ordinary constant (
G
0
)does not. This why we observe some cosmic effects exhib-ited in tidal effects, or effects drawn from perturbation byother objects in the solar system. In this context one has acalculable variation in the strength of gravity resulting fromthe cosmic expansion. This variation can’t be measured di-rectly. We present here a new approach of detecting theirvariation with cosmic time in the way they affect the dynam-ics of the planetary system. An increasing gravitational con-stant may mimic an increasing mass of a gravitating body.Or alternatively, it mimics a dark matter surrounding thegravitating body that makes the orbiting object to fall to-ward it. A universe with an increasing gravitational constantmay look indistinguishable from the one with dark matter.Hence, if gravity increases for some reason the idea of dark matter need not be appealing. Milgrom modified Newton’slaw to account for the flattening of the rotation curve. In ourpresent case the modification does not change the form of Newton’s law.If one assumes that the length of the year remains con-stant, then the length of the day
(D)
should scale as
D
∝
G
2eff
.
.
(8)Hence, one has
T
0
D
0
=
TD,
(9)where the subscript ‘0’ on the quantity denotes its presentvalue. Our model shows that the day was six hours when theEarth was formed.The angular velocity of the Earth about the Sun is(
=
2
πT
)
∝
G
2eff
.
.
(10)This implies that the Earth is accelerating at a rate of
˙
=
2
˙
G
eff
.
G
eff
.
(11)and at the same time the Earth-Sun distance decreases at arate of
˙
rr
=−˙
G
eff
.
G
eff
.
.
(12)If we know how
G
varies, one can calculate this variation. Inour cosmological model, we know that the general variationof
G
depends on a parameter
n
that determines the wholecosmology. If
n
is know then the whole cosmological pa-rameters are known. Our cosmological model could not de-termine
n
exactly. It places a weaker limit on the value of
n
.However, Wells had found from a palaeontological study thenumber of days in the year at different geologic times. To re-produce his result we require the age of the universe to be
t
0
∼
11 billion years and
n
=
1
.
3 so that
G
eff
.
=
G
0
t t
0
1
.
3
.
T
=
T
0
t
0
t
2
.
6
,
(14)
r
=
r
0
t
0
t
1
.
3
,
(15)
v
=
v
0
t t
0
1
.
3
,
(16)and
D
=
D
0
t t
0
2
.
6
.
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