(11-20-2018, 11:00 AM)sandcastles Wrote: I did a search for `Oumuamua; nobody has discussed it here?
I was wondering about something. Astronomers were getting different estimates for its dimensions. It seems to be long and thin, but 3km, 10km, or something else?
So I was wondering if random impacts might have left it with a more unusual shape. Pieces might break off, but gravity might pull them back together in (seemingly) random fashion.
Is it too unlikely that `Oumuamua is shaped like: A spoon, a fork, a tractor, a desk lamp...? Not exactly like those (probably) but fairly close. That might explain the inconsistent estimates on its size and proportions.
On the other hand, I haven't actually studied to data leading to those results...oh, well.
If pieces broke off, and were attracted by gravity to recombine, the overall shape would tend toward spherical.
The gravity at the middle of a rod, toward the axis of the rod, is stronger than the gravity toward the axis of any other part of the rod, excepting the ends. The gravity is also toward the center of the rod. If you were standing on a cylindrically shaped Earth, with a round barrel equator, and flat poles, you would find that gravity at the higher latitudes, on the barrel face, was uphill. Likewise, toward the lower latitudes on the pole plates.
If the Earth were cylindrically shaped, with the cap for the cylinder starting at what is now the Polar Circles, anything in Canada would roll downhill toward Brazil, or downhill toward the North Pole. Anything in Venezuela, likewise, would roll downhill toward Brazil or the South Pole, depending on whether or not it was above the Antarctic Circle, or below it.