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
They are orbiting the sun, just like the Earth.
Which means they are basically just going in an oval around the sun over and over.
Eventually the orbit of the Earth and the orbit of the meteor line up and it ends up close to us again.
We have only discovered a couple of objects that are from outside of the Solar system, and therefore not orbiting the sun, those *do* behavior the way you were expecting. They were here for a bit and are now gone forever. But again, those are super duper rare.
Btw, I used the term meteor because that’s what you called it. But that article is about a comet. A meteor is something that enters earths atmosphere (which means it’s going to hit the Earth and stay here). Comet would be the proper term.
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