Comets that have been perturbed

If a comet were in a huge orbit and something exactly stopped it, it would fall into the sun.

If the comet had just a tiny velocity, it would likely miss the sun and be in an elliptical orbit that comes close to the sun and then goes back out to where the comet started from, over and over again.


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Davison E. Soper, Institute of Theoretical Science, University of Oregon, Eugene OR 97403 USA soper@bovine.uoregon.edu