Quote:
Originally Posted by Blacklight
Also, by then , Earth's orbit may be crazy as well. It's VERY hard for a planet to stay in a perfectly stable orbit. Over time, small perturbations in the Earth's orbit might add up and throw us into a radically different apocalyptic orbit.
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I think it works exactly the other way around. Small oddities in orbit over time level out. Even big ones, as the scientific model of how solar systems accrete tiny pieces into bigger rocks and finally into big clusters that then form out as even spheres and finally planets. From a wild party with millions and millions of carambolages to a relatively tidy place with few objects revolving in elliptic orbits around the sun that at first glance appear to be round circles. The forces that may occasionally work against the established "gravitational structure" of the solar system and one of its objects may be exixstent, but are so small that they are of theoretical value only. For example the net effect often mentioned solar winds "pushing" against the moon per year accumulate to an eqivalent of the force of four tennis balls being thrown against the moon. Now imagine how many balls you need to throw before the moon changes it'S orbit, and consider that the moon is subject to a much stronger player as well: Earth'S gravitation that has even stopped it to revolve around its own axis independently (that'S why the moon shows us always the same side, no matter where it is located around Earth).
It would need the impact of a very huge stellar object colliding with a planet to make it changing its orbit. And I do not mean a 2 km meteor only, I mean HUGE. Can happen, but is not what you had on mind when saying that small perturbations may add up in total effect to change orbits.
So the fate of moonbase Alpha-1 in 1999 will probably never meet us.
