is it possible to change the earth's orbit?

Question

If Ye, How..?

Answer 1

Yes but to change it significantly you would need a massive object like another planet.

The means of doing this would be by performing something called a flyby. This is where you enter a hyperbolic orbit around an object and exit this orbit going faster than when you entered it. The space shuttles that have taken pictures of Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus all did flybys of those planets to change course and maintain speeds through the vast emptiness between planets. The reason a flyby changes an orbit is that it takes energy out of the orbit. The object performing the flyby leaves with more kinetic energy than when it entered and this extra energy came from that planet's orbit, but once again, you would need to do this with an extremely massive object for it to be a noticeable change.

Answer 2

Sure.
1. Get a really large gravitational object at least the same mass as the Earth
2. Move it into solar orbit, within about 2 or 3 Earth radii from Earth
- put it in ahead of the Earth in our orbit around the sun to speed us up and make Earth's orbit move farther from the sun
- put it behind the Earth in our orbit around the sun to slow it down and make it move closer to the sun

Answer 3

In order to change the orbit of any object you have to apply enough force to change its speed relative to its orbit. The faster you go, the lower your orbit will become... slower is vice versa.

It would take a catastrophic cosmic event to change the Earth's orbit even by a little

Answer 4

Yes, hypothetically. But since any change in our orbit would totally change our seasons, how cold and hot it got, it would change life as we know it. In a very, very unpleasant way! Possibly even cause us to become extinct. Not an idea that's good to entertain!

Answer 5

Sure, given unlimited resources and enough time.

Go to the asteroid belt.

Put boosters on lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of asteroids.

Shoot them towards earth on a course to pass between the earth and the sun at perihelion (the point in time when earth is closest to the sun.

If you get enough of them (mass) to pass the earth at just the right moment (perihelion) at just the right velocity, you could cause earth to be drawn in toward the sun, altering the orbit.