So there is an article here
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/10/09/science/comet-tsuchinshan-atlas-earth
It speaks about a meteor that will be here in October and not return for 80000 years. I’m just wondering, why do meteors come back?
I assume it takes a lot of force to change the trajectory of a meteor, so wouldn’t it move in the same general direction forever and never come back?
In: Planetary Science
There are meteors that don’t come back: these are called interstellar interlopers. They drift around in the space between galaxies for sometimes literal billions of years, only to briefly zoom through a galaxy like ours.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_object
A couple years ago an interstellar interloper zoomed through our solar system. Also on wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CA%BBOumuamua
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