gravity - Does more ocean on an Earth analog produce a different rotation period?

Would an exoplanet that has more ocean than Earth rotate at a
different speed as a result of this?

Basically no. Rotation speed, or angular velocity doesn't measurably change with your proposed example.

To explain this in more detail, there's two important concepts. First, is Angular Momentum, (Short explanation or longer) and the 2nd concept is Moment of Inertia.

The basic formula is that Angular velocity (time for 1 full rotation) = Angular Momentum divided by Moment of Inertia. Formulas and explanations are in the link(s) above, and if I was to explain it, it would get wordy, but your question seemed to be more general, less about doing the mathematical calculations, so I'll skip the formulas.

In nutshell, talking about a planet, the state of matter doesn't affect the angular momentum. Angular momentum is conserved and that, divided by moment of inertia determines rotation speed. Now if you get something spinning fast enough the angular rotation can overwhelm the gravity and when this happens, the planet can begin to fly apart, which happens more easily with water than a rocky surface which has some cohesion, but ignoring crazy super fast rotations, a water world, a deep ocean world, a shallow ocean world and a rocky world all obey the the angular velocity law and composition doesn't matter. The angular momentum is conserved. The moment of inertia of a planet can change but for the most part, doesn't change much.

The Earth's moment of Inertia, for example, changes as glaciers grow or shrink, or when there's an earthquake. Even, every time we a tall building is built the Earth's moment of inertia increases a teeny tiny bit, similar to a skater extending their arms to slow down coming out of a spiral.

When there's an earthquake which, for the most part, settles the Earth, there's a small increases in the Earth's rotational speed. The total angular momentum and total mass remaining the same but shifting of material changes the moment of inertia. (Granted space dust and tidal effects change the Earth's moment of Inertia, but quite slowly).

Would the amount of water impact the weight, gravitational pull,
and/or tidal forces and cause a difference in the exoplanet's rotation
period?

This is harder question to answer precisely because adding water changes the mass of the planet and changing the mass changes the moment of inertia, but sticking to the principal of your question, there's no measurable effect.

Lets take a somewhat simpler example without changing the planet's mass. Ice ages. When the Earth is in an ice age there's less liquid oceans and more ice at the poles but the total mass is unchanged. More mass at the poles and less mass in the oceans decreases the Earth's moment of inertia because the bulk of the Earth's moment of inertia is around the equator, so, as a result, the Earth rotates slightly faster during an ice age and slightly slower after an ice age. Over time, the Earth's crust has a tendency adjust for this effect but that takes tens of thousands of years. Parts of the Earth's crust is still rebounding from the last ice age.

Gravitational pull isn't relevant. Neutron Stars with enormous gravitational pull can rotate very fast and the planet with the fastest rotation in our solar-system is Jupiter and the one with the slowest rotation is Mercury. Angular velocity has no direct correlation to mass or gravity though there is an indirect correlation. As a star, for example condenses it's rotation speeds up, because the angular momentum is conserved but as it settles the moment of inertia decreases. That's why young stars, White Dwarfs and Neutron stars can spin very fast.

Tidal forces can create drag on rotation but the effect is slow, taking millions or hundreds of millions of years. With enough time, tidal forces cause a planet or moon to stop rotating and become tidally locked but there's no short term affect. (I'll say a bit more on this later).

So, a planet with large oceans wouldn't rotate any slower than a planet with no oceans because liquid or solid can have equal angular velocity, but over time, tides will slow a planet with oceans more quickly than a planet without them.

Because the Earth has oceans, the Moon's gravitation on the Earth's tidal bulge does slow down the Earth's rotation, but this has been happening for 4 billion years and the Earth still rotates every 24 hours - one of the faster planets. If the Earth had more water the Moon's tidal tug would slow the earth down a bit faster, but it would still be very gradual.

Jupiter, which is basically a ball of gas, is the fastest rotating planet and Mercury, basically a rock, the slowest, so those are 2 examples of composition not being a factor, though Mercury's slow rotation is in large part due to the strong tidal forces it receives from the Sun.

Now, I Understand the logical approach to your question, as there's something apparent about water resisting rotation - touched on in this question, but the fact that water doesn't spin with a glass when you spin a glass is an example of conservation of angular momentum, not an argument against it. On a planet, the oceans are rotating with the planet and the angular momentum is already there.

Hope that wasn't too long, but that's the gist of it. I can try to clean up or clarify if needed.

gravity - Is the moon moving further away from Earth and closer to the Sun? Why?

Yes, the moon is moving away from Earth at around 1.48" per year. According to the BBC:

The Moon is kept in orbit by the gravitational force that the Earth exerts on it, but the Moon also exerts a gravitational force on our planet and this causes the movement of the Earth's oceans to form a tidal bulge.

Due to the rotation of the Earth, this tidal bulge actually sits slightly ahead of the Moon. Some of the energy of the spinning Earth gets transferred to the tidal bulge via friction.

This drives the bulge forward, keeping it ahead of the Moon. The tidal bulge feeds a small amount of energy into the Moon, pushing it into a higher orbit like the faster, outside lanes of a test track.

So, tidal forces are ultimately what causes this to happen.

Also, there is a Wikipedia article on tidal forces:

Tidal acceleration is an effect of the tidal forces between an orbiting natural satellite (e.g. the Moon), and the primary planet that it orbits (e.g. the Earth). The acceleration causes a gradual recession of a satellite in a prograde orbit away from the primary, and a corresponding slowdown of the primary's rotation. The process eventually leads to tidal locking of first the smaller, and later the larger body. The Earth–Moon system is the best studied case.

Michigan's Pole Star - Astronomy

It would depend on what time the Earth started to spin around Michigan. There is no way to answer this without saying what time, time of year, and which century (or at least millennium) it happens.

Edit: Hi Dayna. Thanks for the the time of year the Keweenaw Peninsula becomes the North Pole. One could be omniscient except for that and not know this. But we also still haven't ruled out a single star since your OP. With the time though we could tell you exactly what star. The decade is not important. What century or part of history it happens, yes but not the decade. (yes, astronomy is weird).

Why is it always planets orbiting stars?

Planets often circle stars because they have a very strong gravitational pull. Infact, our moon orbits the earth and we can look at a solar system in the same way. The earth has enough matter inside it to keep the moon in orbit, and the sun has enough matter inside it to create a gravitational pull strong enough to keep a entire solar system in its orbit.

You can't have several stars circling a planet, the pull of a single planet wouldn't be strong enough (the planet's center would be so dense nuclear reactions would start occurring and it would be a star anyway) . You can have binary star systems though, which are where 2 stars orbit around their common barycenter.

So basically, things orbit other things with a stronger gravitational pull.

universe - Why when we look through a telescope in space, do the billions of stars not block our view from seeing further?

Yes they do, or rather not the stars but the dust and gas nebulae that are between them. However this is only a serious problem when we are looking through our own galaxy towards more distant objects.

Look at this apod from Jan 16 2016: It shows a relativly nearby galaxy, and one that would be a fairly easy object for amateur telescopes, if it were not aligned to the edge of the milky way in Cameleopardis. It can be seen, but only through a mess of nearby stars and gas. Galaxies that are behind the galactic centre in Sagittarius would be essentially invisible.

However, if we are not looking through our galaxy, but out of it, the nearby stars don't block our view this is because stars are so small compared to interstellar distances: If the sun were the size of a football, then Alpha Centuari would be on the other side of the world.

amateur observing - Can the Milky Way be seen with the naked eye? Does this apply to any galaxy? If yes, then how and when?

Yes, we certainly can see the Milky Way from Earth. I saw it through an airplane window at night. But you don't need to do that, either. Find some place with not much pollution, especially light and smoke, and gaze up at night. You should see a beautiful band of stars. Proof? In the 1990's, there was a major electricity blackout in Los Angeles. People looked up and saw it, but many of them thought that aliens were invading or something . . . so they called up 911.

All you need to know is that you can, you should, and hopefully, you will. As for other galaxies, you won't see them in quite the same way, because we're not situated in such a viewpoint. But you can see them, like the Andromeda Galaxy, if you find a dark place without pollution. Go to the countryside!

It's also possible at any time. Because the milky way is shaped like a bulging disc, and we're in a great spot, we can see it at any time; it spans across the whole Celestial Sphere!

multiverse - Existence of multiple universe?

We don't know. The Multiverse Theory is really just a hypothethis; sure, it makes sense, but it cannot be scientifically proven. We really have no reason to doubt that this is our only universe. Wormholes are just as hypothetical, since they would require infinite energy or negative energy to be created, neither of which we can get. Also, keep in mind that String Theory is, for the most part, unprovable. It cannot be confirmed through scientific experiments and is mostly guesswork.

Also, it will take trillions of years before the Universe gets too cold for life, and we will be long gone by then. However way you put it, it's unlikely that humans will ever reach other habitable planets before we go extinct, should our planet be destroyed. The closest potentially-habitable planet is nearly 480 lightyears from us – as in, it would take us 480 years to get there, if we travelled at the fastest speed in the Universe. We surely won't live to see the end of the Universe.