Does the earths passage around the sun change over a longer period ?

Question

Not the yearly passage, but over a period of say 1000 years. Also, is there a recurring pattern in addition to the earths normal pattern (something like a tidal phenomena - getting ever closer at its closest point, and then ever further at its farthest point, then being slowly 'pushed back' again, but always staying on approximately the same path around the sun overall)

Answer 1

Yes, some years the earth's orbit is more elliptical than other years. I'm not sure that it's predictable, though. It has to do with interstellar dust, and also with proximity of other stars in the galaxy. Remember, the sun is moving through the Milky Way in a 200,000 year orbit. This has been proposed as a possible alternative explanation of Global Warming.

Answer 2

The Earths orbit around the sun is not perfectly circular - it is what is called an ellipse. An ellipse is best described as a circle that has been stretched out at the middle so flattening the top and bottom. To measure the amount of stretching you have to use the mathmatical equation that follows... Semi-minor axis divided by the Semi-major axis minus 1. (the figures you use for the axis distances can be either miles or kilometers). The resulting answer from the above calculation will give you a figure of how much the earths orbit is away from a perfect circle. The current figure is 0.01577 which is approximately the least it will be. The most the figure will be is approximately 0.03155. The whole process from max. to max. or min. to min. takes around 93,408 years. This cycle of orbital eccentricity is just one of the many, many contributing factors to the ever changing climate on Earth: glacial and interglacial periods, ice-ages and the occasional bout of global warming.

Answer 3

international warming is an entire rip-off. Algore is a moron that makes use of over $10K according to month in potential working each and all the air conditioners at his 15 room mansion Al gore has a fleet of Lincoln Towncars that get under 12 MPG Al gore has a private jet simply by fact he, like our speaker of the living house, and prefer Dian Feinstien, are too good to fly commercial with the "little human beings" the favored 3 hundred and sixty 5 days on checklist continues to be 1934, for this reason the hysterical socialists (that prefer to place all US corporation out of corporation with punitive regulations) now call it "climate substitute" this way they are able to nonetheless cry hysterically even however the planet has been cooling provided that 1934. The climate has been changing simply by fact the international replaced into created, and its not brought about by using Al Gors jets or Arnold's Hummer !

Answer 4

Suspendor was onto something but pretty much botched his answer. First up, it takes 250 million years for the sun to orbit the galaxy...he was only off by a factor of 1000. The other periodic change to our orbit he mentions, and that you allude to in your question, is a cycle in the "eccentricity" of our orbit...that being how elliptical our orbit is. Over the course of 100,000 years or so, our orbit goes from being nearly circular to more elliptical...though I'm not sure the full range of how elliptical it gets. It certainly could play a role in our climate and is theorized to be part of the equation in our ongoing cycle of ice ages...though it is clearly not the only variable.

Answer 5

Yes...VERY subtlely. These "changes" are actually compensated for with having "leap year" once every 4 years when Feb. 29th occurs....and also through the occasional addition of a "leap second" every once in a while. This is needed because one FULL orbit around the sun by the earth is off a full year by a very small fraction....this keeps the seasons at the time of year they are supposed to be EVERY year....otherwise, the seasons would slowly drift into different dates.

Answer 6

Well outside of the precession of the equinoxes, (change of direction of the earth's poles) I am sure that there are other minor changes. We have a large body, Sun with a smaller body, Earth, spinning around it. Following laws of motion - and using the forces of gravity and centrifigal forces, all would remain constant except for: change in size of either two bodies - change in speed of orbiting body. Distance would only change if speed changed.

Answer 7

The Earth`s orbit changes from `Perihelion` 91.4 million miles to `Aphelion` at a distance of 94.5 million miles.

Answer 8

I'm pretty sure it does.... 'cause how else would we have a lunar eclipse? But that path is relatively the same.... like the elliptical path. Pretty much never changes, we just did this section in grade 9 science!

Answer 9

it changes and we get ice ages

Answer 10

yes. it is slowing down.