Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles As several people have pointed out, a very strong ring around a spherically symmetric object is in an unstable gravitational equilibrium, which means that if it stays perfectly put, it’s fine, but if it gets nudged even just slightly off its perfectly centered position, it will then get pulled farther and farther from that position, since the part now closer to the earth gets pulled more strongly toward the earth than the part now farther from earth. So, it’s just like a perfectly balanced pencil.
B2 equilibrium unstable perfectly earth pulled position Footnote †: Unstable Equilibrium 7 1 林宜悉 posted on 2020/03/28 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary