At what distance from earth you stop spinning with it?

[Deleted]

So, as the title says, for some reason I felt like figuring out the answer to this question, tried googling around and came up with no answers, Although I'm positive there is a better way to portray this question aswell. At what distance from our planet would an object lets say the size of a rock stop spinning with it, assuming it lost all its momentum when leaving this zone?

[Mifuyne]

You never will, gravity is infinite.
Earths gravity is "dominant" until around 1.5 million km (0.01 AU).
After that, gravity from other objects overtake it but that does not mean it is gone.

[Cannibalus]

I think the question isn't about Gravity but about the "stickyness" of the atmosphere, so probably any object would stop spinning in the superior layers of the atmosphere, where it's thin enough.

While i understand the idea, you must also think that any object that comes close to the atmosphere gets pulled in. Also if you wonderered, the level at which satellites "flow" is a level where centrifugal force is equal with the gravitational pull (so pretty much anything under that gets pulled anyways). So you would need a rock with a rocket attached

Hope i helped a bit :P

[Orloth]

Momentum is an inherent property of all matter. It isn't lost. If the object was spinning when it was chucked out to space, it would continue spinning indefinately until it colided with something that changed its momentum.

Now, I'm not sure what you mean by spinning with it. Do you mean with the roation? In which case, it has nothing to do with distance, but whether or not it is attached. Imagine a building. That building is attached to the ground and thus spinning with it. Even the friction of your sneakers on the ground is enough, because of Momentum and Gravity. The air at the same height of the building is also spinning, but at a slower rate because it is less attached to the Earth (lmagine making a whirlpool by twirling a straw around a glass, it's the same sort of effect. The spinning of the earth causes the air to spin too.) The only way to get free of this spinning is to be completely detached from the earth, in space. Once you're there, you're no longer spinning with the earth. But if you were stationary, you'd also be falling toward the earth because of gravity. The way things stay in orbit is by out running gravity, by going around the earth faster then they're falling. Going faster then that means you'd be leaving earth, But even then, you'd be going in larger and larger circles around the earth until you were far enough away that the Earth's gravity was negligable.

Now, if an object lost all momentum, It would Stop. It would stop spinning, it would stop moving, it would stop everything. This would likely be disastrous because everything is moving. The earth is spinning and orbiting the Sun. The Sun is orbiting the monstrous black whole at the center of the Milky Way. The Milky Way is moving toward Andromeda. All quite quickly. If the object suddenly lost all momentum, it would likely look to us as if it suddenly started going very fast in the opposite direction to the greatest of these motions.

[Afrospinach]

So, as the title says, for some reason I felt like figuring out the answer to this question, tried googling around and came up with no answers, Although I'm positive there is a better way to portray this question as well. At what distance from our planet would an object lets say the size of a rock stop spinning with it, assuming it lost all its momentum when leaving this zone?

If an object lost all it's momentum relative to the earth it would be traveling at 1000kph ground speed give or take, this can happen anywhere if it is just "losing it's momentum" like magic. At ground level it will be picked up by the atmosphere obviously. Think of flying a plane the wrong way around the planet to keep the time at midday forever.

But I think you are trying to ask something about orbits? At what limit will an object cease to be in earths orbit? In a vacuum(no pun intended), never. In reality Mif gave you the answer. If you lose all your velocity with respect to the earth you will just gradually fall toward it, directly.

While i understand the idea, you must also think that any object that comes close to the atmosphere gets pulled in. Also if you wonderered, the level at which satellites "flow" is a level where centrifugal force is equal with the gravitational pull (so pretty much anything under that gets pulled anyways). So you would need a rock with a rocket attached

Hope i helped a bit :P

Think you are talking about geostationary, If we had no atmosphere you could orbit at an altitude of inches. Just need enough velocity to cover enough ground for the curve of the sphere to match your acceleration due to gravity.

[Serenais]

Well, the answer is a bit complex. You "stop exactly following" Earth's rotation the exact moment you cut contact with the surface, although for all applicable practices, that is still immesurable (therefore you don't see the ground move away from you when you jump up), on top of that the kinetic energy you get from Earth's rotation is pretty small compared to the energy needed to move significantly in Earth's gravitational field. If it wasn't that way, you'd fly off the surface in an open curve (see below).

Technically speaking, you stop rotating with the Earth the moment you reach escape velocity. Earth's gravity will still affect you, however, your trajectory will no longer be bound in Earth's gravitational field and instead of a closed curve (either one that leaves you in orbit around Earth, or falling onto it) and end up in an open curve instead (depending on your velocity, either a parabola or a hyperbola). Mind you, the effect of Earth's rotation will be there, in the vector and kinetic energy you had while on the ground as compared to had the Earth not been rotating (to put that into perspective - compared to the hypothetical state of Earth not rotating, a person on the equater is moving at almost half a kilometer per second; this velocity is decreasing the further away from the equator and close to the poles that person is). The vector of that movement is tangential to Earth's surface in the direction of Earth's rotation; it curves into a circle because you are "forced" onto the ground by Earth's gravity. If Earth "suddenly" disappeared, you would start moving in a straight line at the velocity you were moving around the Earth's axis (of course, that is, if we do not take Sun's gravity into account; if we do, you'd end up in orbit around the Sun), until you'd hit another object or ended up being affected by an external force.

So... that. I probably messed up the explanation, as I always do, but... that's how it is. Unless I got it wrong. x)