lau wrote:
The other extreme... should you hollow out the entire of the interior of a planet, leaving just a thin (just inches or a few miles, say) shell - again, the entire interior would have zero gravity. You could not "stand on the interior surface", say. Although if would appear that you are close to lots of matter, the net effect of the rest of the mass "over your head" exactly cancels the attraction of the closer parts.
Furthermore, if Earth was actually hollow, the Coriolis effect of the spinning planet still wouldn't be sufficient enough to provide the amount of gravity that we have due to the lack of mass. Earths' atmosphere would be less than that of Mars, as the lack of sufficient gravity would cause any gasses present on the surface to dissipate into outer space, and the surface would be just as barren and devoid of life as the moon in practically all areas of the planet aside from perhaps the equatorial regions where the Coriolis effect would be greatest. Then again, nothing would stop the osmotic flow of atmosphere from the equatorial region to the polar regions unless there were parallel mountain ranges running along both sides of the equator. -- So much for the hollow earth theory.
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