But the ocean has a huge amount of kinetic energy as well. How come that doesn't override the moon's gravity?
What is the kinetic energy of the ocean?
It's pretty small. Most of the ocean movement is caused by wind and the tide.
To calculate the kinetic energy of a tide, pick a mass - say a million tons (it doesn't matter, we are dividing it out anyway) and then give it a velocity. One large tide is 15 feet, and that takes about 6 hours to go high to low, so that is 2.5feet per hour, and even if you went 1 meter per hour, that is .00027 meters per second.
now square that - KE = 1/2 mass*velocity2
and if you look at it on a 'per mass' basis, by dividing out the mass, the kinetic energy is very very tiny.
And what causes the high kinetic energy of the air/wind again? I don't think we went over that. (The spin of the earth? Or no?)
air has a high kinetic energy due to the temperature - average random motion of air molecules.
air molecules just bounce around naturally to cause temperature.
at colder temperatures air molecules have slower speeds and at higher temperatures air molecules move faster.
temperature and kinetic energy are related - high temperature means high kinetic energy, low temperature is lower kinetic energy.
lower kinetic energy also means bounces off walls are weaker - so if you blow up a balloon and put it in the freezer, the balloon will shrink because the bounces against the wall are weaker/slower.
it's from temperature.
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