Do all planets, star, asteroids and other object have similar speed? Could we get hit by an object going the same speed as the sun (200km/s)?
In: Planetary Science
Most things in the solar system are going the same way since they’ve had billions of years to collude with things going the other way.
The larger objects in the solar system have mostly circular orbits. If anything is orbiting the sun in a circular orbit, anything else with that same radius of orbit will be going the same speed.
Due to this low relative speed, asteroids don’t hit the Earth at much more than escape velocity.
Only highly eccentric orbits would even be near something else traveling at a high relative speed (like a comet). These could hit the Earth at a much higher speed if conditions are right.
Something from outside the solar system is really the only candidate that could be traveling at such a speed.
Space is very empty, so the likelihood of anything traveling at such a high speed of hitting us is very unlikely.
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