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this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2024
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That's the thing - in space, orbits don't decay. Orbital decay only happens if there's dust or atmosphere that you bump into along your orbit to slow you down. But in interplanetary space, there's no dust or atmosphere, and certainly not enough to decay your orbit fast enough to achieve results (otherwise, the Earth would have already decayed and melted in the Sun)
You need to spend fuel to lower your orbit to hit the Sun, and you need to spend fuel to raise your orbit to escape the solar system. It turns out to be really freaking difficult to hit the sun because it simply requires so much fuel to lower your orbit enough to hit the Sun.
Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space
Orbital decay isn't just friction from particles, you also have imperfections in the orbit and other objects influencing the eccentricity over time. The moon has gravity too for instance.
You are making 2 opposing assumptions there, 1) there is nothing to bump into in outer space, the earth picks up 43 tons of new mass every day.
If orbits don't decay, why do even high orbit satellites need to make elevation corrections?
If you put a small body into outer space it would absolutely be (slowly) effected by the miasma of particles out there.
And let's not forget we don't have a time table for reaching the sun, and we aren't aiming for the middle of the sun to see results. And as you approach the sun you will bump into more and more particles as they too are being drawn around the sun.