Submitted by AutoModerator t3_y24qed in askscience
PeanutSalsa t1_is207y6 wrote
Why does the earth not move closer or farther to/from the sun over time and how solid is the theory explaining why it doesn't?
TheMightySwiss t1_is23mlk wrote
It kind of does actually. If you read up about Mylankovitch cycles, you’ll see that there are periods of time where earth spends more time per year further away from the sun, and if you take that and run the simulation let’s say for 1 million years, you’ll see that at some point the climate is plunged into an ice age state, then the cycle reverses and it becomes warmer again (interglacial period), which is where we are now and probably one of the big reasons why we even exist as Homo Sapiens and evolved how we did. However, if you’re talking about a gradual one way movement (like moving closer or further away) over time, then no, it’s not really happening. The orbital radius of Earth should remain the same as long as earth and the sun retain the same mass.
Wooden_Ad_3096 t1_is4xyc7 wrote
It does, it’s orbit isn’t a perfect circle.
But if you mean it’s average distance, well it also does, but barely.
Since there really isn’t anything in space, earth isn’t being slowed down by anything, but space isn’t completely empty, so there is a tiny bit of friction.
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