Saturday, November 5, 2011

Could an asteroid collision change the earth's orbit and make it fall towards or away from the sun?

How large would an asteroid need to be in order to change the earth's orbit around the sun? or how much force would need to be exerted on the earth so that it would be attracted to the sun or pushed out of its orbit and into space? Just like in a billiards game, if the earth (a ball in motion) would be hit by a smaller yet significant in size object (e.g. a marble in motion), would the trajectory of the earth be modified? Have any asteroids that have hit the earth so far (e.g. the one that is believed to have made dinosaurs go extinct) modified the earth's trajectory around the sun?

No comments:

Post a Comment