A large comet hits the Sun, slightly increasing its mass. Would the Earth move closer or further from the Sun?

Answer 1

Very slightly closer... even a large comet would be miniscule compared to the total mass of the sun.

Aloha

Answer 2

Slightly closer. It would also revolve around the Sun slightly faster; objects with lower orbits revolve more quickly than objects with higher orbits.

Keep in mind, though, that one comet is going to do almost nothing to the mass of the Sun. In fact, the amount of energy the Sun releases every day, converted to matter through Einstein's equation, is more than the mass of most comets! So in fact, the Earth is probably slowly moving AWAY from the Sun as the Sun burns off its hydrogen.

Answer 3

Let's forget about the comet.

What you really want to know is what would happen to the Earth's orbit IF the mass of the Sun increased.

All other things remaining true...

An increase in Solar Mass would increase the Sun's gravitational forces.

If the Sun's gravity increased, then all objects within the Sun's gravity field would be drawn closer.

The Earth's elliptical orbit would alter, bringing the Earth closer to the Sun at one point [or an arc] along its orbital path.

That said, the new elliptical orbit would also make the Earth move slightly further away from the Sun at one point [or an arc] along its orbital path.

If the Earth's orbit was a perfect circle initially [which it is not]. then the Earth's orbit would decrease slightly, thus bringing it close to the sun at all points along its orbital path.

Answer 4

The sun loses mass at well over a million tons per second, a large comet could have a mass of say a thousand billion tons, at most some days worth of natural losses, so the effect would be utterly negligible. The Earth is slowly moving away from the sun as its gravity weakens, but only about one inch per year.

Answer 5

if a comet hit the sun, it would probably be incinerated even before making contact. but if the suns mass increased enough the earth and the rest of the solar system would move closer

Answer 6

Neither. For a comet to be large and massive enough to increase the size of the sun, it would have to be another star or many, MANY times the size of Jupiter, our largest planet. And if anything that big ever came through the system, it would probably disrupt the orbits of any of our planets as it passed them. It would cause chaos before it ever even hit the sun.

Answer 7

Technically yes, but only by a neglible amount. I am sure that, unless this comet were quite big, that the solar wind ejected by the sun on any given day would exceed this comets mass.

Answer 8

The Earth's orbit is fairly eccentric, and so it rather is somewhat closer to the sunlight in December than at different circumstances of the twelve months. this version occurs each twelve months. Over circumstances of one hundred thousand years, the Earth's orbit turns into extra eccentric and much less eccentric, usually as a results of interactions with Jupiter. those are called Milankovich cycles, and are in part to blame for Ice a while. the gap to the sunlight averaged over the twelve months maintains to be an identical over very long sessions of time (tens of millions of years), in spite of the fact that.

Answer 9

It would move closer to the Sun because of increase in gravity force. It would also speed up.

Answer 10

The comet mass, irrespective of hitting the sun, would pull the earth towards it.