
How stable is the Earth's orbit?
Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe
00:00
The Effects of the Sun's Energy on the Earth
The earth is like a big solar sail remember we talked about how photons can push on things even though they don't have mass they have momentum. Over a million years that increases the earth's orbital radius by about the width of a proton but really these effects are totally negligible compared to the sun losing its mass this is basically something we can ignore although it depends on how hot you make the earth. The sun actually is getting hotter every year and it's growing which would be very bad for the earth obviously to get enveloped by the outer layers of the sun because not only would it be super hot but it would drag on us.
Transcript
Play full episode