If earths velocity is what keeps us in orbit then if we slow down do we fall into the sun? Are we slowing down? And if not why not? Isn’t there a tiny fraction of friction in space that might slow us down eventually? It seems so unlikely that we would enter the solar system so perfectly that we would start to orbit. Have there been a thousand planets before us that just missed the mark or is there something keeping us on track?
In: Physics
While there is only one perfectly circular orbit (for each radius) , there’s actually a range of stable elliptical orbits. We’re in one of them. There are only a couple of ways Earth’s orbit could change.
One would be impacts from other objects such as meteorites, photons, and stray protons. As others pointed out, there really aren’t enough asteroids in our solar system to push us out of a stable orbit. And while stray protons do have momentum, the Universe would end long before they’d have any significant affect.
The other major factor that could change the Earth’s orbit would be tidal forces between the Earth and Sun. The mass of the Sun is so large that again the Universe would probably end first. And even if it didn’t, the Sun surely will
Edit: specified perfect circular orbits
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