You should know that the “tension” effect of gravity changes. So if an orbit is perturbed, after the perturbation is removed, the force acting on the body is not the same as the force that was originally acting on it due to the change in distance.
How this new force returns it to the old orbit kind of escapes me.
The potential energy is limited by the force of the plucking.
The amplitude even in a vacuum is reduced with each cycle as the kinetic energy dissipates.
There is only enough energy imparted to keep it vibrating for a limited period of time.
The energy imparted by a passing body is limited, the constant forces that remain do not change , they remain long after it is gone.
In order to cause a permanent change in the orbit the object would have to cause such a large disruption that those constant forces are defeated, just like the guitar string.
Not true. The passing body modifies our orbit, correct? If our orbit has been modified then the “r” in the gravitational equation is different.
F = G*((m sub 1*m sub 2)/r^2)
The original force has changed. How would we return to the original “equilibrium”?
In the same way the guitar string is. The constant forces are constant, the temporary force is temporary and unless it’s so significant to defeat the others equilibrium has to return.
Every body that has ever passed close to the earth has had an effect on our orbit yet due to gravity and angular momentum we keep returning to a very predictable and demonstrably so orbit.
What tells you that we “keep returning” to the predictable orbit?
That seems like an unsupportable statement.
The fact that the math proves it out constantly. Our orbit varies but it can always be accurately plotted at any point in time and verified by observation.
If it couldn’t none of our calculations that depend on knowing our place in the universe would be completely unreliable.
Or maybe the forces you’re referring to that affect our orbit are just that infantessimally small and can be basically ignored.
Yeah. That seems more likely. Much more likely.
Gravity and angular momentum are the forces the hold our entire system together.
No kidding. Thanks.
The point is that NEOs don’t affect our orbit in any appreciable manner. The gas giants at most can oscillate our eccentricity over time frames of tens of thousands of years, not sufficient to be observed. This is an extremely weak force capable of changing our orbit only after extremely long periods of time, and nicely enough reverse the effect they did have over similarly long periods of time. They don’t prevent us from spiraling into the Sun. They don’t keep us at a more distant orbit. They don’t magically put us back into an old orbit if ours is modified by some temporary force.
Out of curiosity, do you have any examples of anyone who does know what they’re talking about that backs this up or are you just going with what you came up with yourself?
Since you have no idea what effect any NEO’s have had on us except during very recent history your claim is completely baseless.
You’re the one claiming that something is “varying our orbit” and we have “observed” it returning to”normal”. What exactly did you mean by that?
Our orbit varies all the time due to natural cycles and any object acting on it does as well.
In spite of those facts we can accurately calculate the position of the earth at any time in the future because the constant forces keep us on a predictable orbit in the long term.
Until something changes our orbit enough to defeat those stable forces, we will remain in an accurately predictable orbit.
Your claim is that something could come along, alter our orbit a little and then it would return eventually back to its “normal”.
When I asked how you knew that, you said it was because we had calculated the orbit and it was always predictable, but now that doesn’t seem to be what you’re claiming.
I’ll ask again, how do you know these “constant forces” will return our orbit to its previous state if our orbit is modified slightly by something else?
Because it always has done so. Every NEO has some effect on our orbit yet, the math shows we can accurately predict where we’ll be at any point in time absent some new force acting to change it.
The same calculations we use for our position in the future can be used to plot our position in the past and compare those numbers to those recorded at the time.
That tells us we keep returning to the same predictable orbit.
Absent some new force to change it? Like an NEO? Hmmmm.
Here’s the problem with your story. No NEO has had any measureable effect on our orbit in the timeframe that man has had the ability to measure it. So you can claim an object has affected our orbit but it returned to normal when we measure it but the reality is that there has simply been no measureable effect.
Like a large NEO with enough effect on us to alter it permanently yes.
There’s no evidence to suggest that any such event has happened in the last million years or so and certainly not within the time frame in which we’ve been recording solar and stellar observations.
Monolitic sites around the world dating back as far as 20,000 years or more that plot the positions of stars and the equinoxes show that we’ve remained on the same predictable orbit for as long as they have existed following minor perturbations.
We’ve only had the ability to detect minor variations in our orbit for less than a hundred years.
We’ve been here for over 4 billion years.
What minor perturbations are you referring to?
There haven’t been any in human history that could have any measurable effect. Certainly not able to be measured by Stonehenge (or some such objects).
