4 ms·
According to the link, the outgoing aphelion will be almost 40% more than the previous one, so I wouldn't assume it's going to orbit indefinitely.
by perl4ever 5y ago
According to the link, the outgoing aphelion will be almost 40% more than the previous one, so I wouldn't assume it's going to orbit indefinitely.
- elihu 5y agoThat seems awfully weird. Is that something that things orbiting the sun normally do?
- perl4ever 5y agoMy intuition is that anything with a really eccentric orbit (10s to 10s of thousands of AU) has more of a chance of passing through many gravitational fields that change its orbit.
- elihu 5y agoI suppose that makes sense... if something is in an orbit that's flattened down until it's only slightly off from being a straight line in and out, then any very slight perturbations could really affect how close it comes to the sun on the next pass. The sun moves too a little bit, due to the pull of the planets. Maybe it's enough to make a difference?