'As the Earth moves away from the sun, the sun's light will become dimmer,' DiGiorgio said. Might Earth's growing distance from the sun influence Earth's climate? However, these tidal forces have a very weak effect on Earth's orbit: They cause Earth to move about 0.0001 inch (0.0003 cm) away from the sun every year, DiGiorgio calculated. (A similar effect is leading Earth's moon to slowly drift away from our planet.) The bulge's mass has a gravitational pull associated with it, tugging Earth ahead on its orbit and slinging it farther from the sun, Scharringhausen noted. Because this is faster than the 365 or so days it takes for Earth to complete an orbit around the sun, the tidal bulge Earth generates on the sun sits ahead of Earth. The sun rotates on its axis about once every 27 days, according to NASA. This stretches the side of the sun that faces Earth, resulting in a 'tidal bulge,' Britt Scharringhausen, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Beloit College in Wisconsin, wrote for Cornell University's Ask an Astronomer page. Just as the moon's gravitational pull results in tides on Earth, so does Earth's gravity tug on the sun. 'This is pretty negligible, especially compared to the normal variation in Earth's orbital distance that happens because of its slightly elliptical orbit - about 3%,' DiGiorgio said. But we shouldn't throw the sun a bon voyage party just yet. Because the sun is losing mass, its pull on Earth is weakening, leading our planet to drift away from our star by about 2.36 inches (6 centimeters) per year, DiGiorgio said. The strength of an object's gravitational pull is proportional to how much mass it has.

'It's about the same amount of mass as Jupiter.' Jupiter, in turn, is about 318 times Earth's mass, according to the Exploratorium in California. The ultimate fate of Earth is something only time can tell.Although 0.1% may not sound like a lot, 'this is a lot of mass,' DiGiorgio said. Thankfully, the odds of that happening are pretty low because there is so much space in between stars. The gravity of even a small star (or black hole) could ruin orbits and kick out planets if it gets too close. The solar system may be a well-choreographed waltz of planets, but the galaxy is more like a rock concert where the stars mosh in a circle. It’s possible that these flexing orbits could cause the solar system to destabilize and eject planets, Earth included.Īlternatively, while other stars typically stay light-years away from the solar system, it’s possible one could drift nearby in the next few billion years. Although much smaller than the Sun’s pull, these forces between planets tweak their orbits over millions of years, making them flex and drift.

Gravity keeps the planets in orbit around the Sun, but it also attracts the planets to each other. While the Sun won’t become a red giant for another 5 billion years, a lot can happen in that time. The Sun doesn’t have the final say in what happens to Earth, however. Over a trillion trillion years, our once-blue planet will spiral into the dead Sun - a grand finale as the solar system goes dark forever. But, eventually, as the Sun cools and dims to a black dwarf, Earth’s orbit will decay due to the emission of gravitational waves. For eons, Earth will continue to orbit the Sun. If Earth manages to survive the Sun’s giant phase, it will find itself orbiting a hot white dwarf barely larger than our planet. If it comes too close, friction between Earth and the outer layers of the Sun will slow our planet’s orbit, causing it to slowly spiral into our star, dissolving like a sugar cube in a hot cup of coffee. Astronomers aren’t sure exactly how close the Sun’s outer atmosphere will come to Earth. Earth will become a scorched, lifeless rock - stripped of its atmosphere, its oceans boiled off. After the Sun exhausts the hydrogen in its core, it will balloon into a red giant, consuming Venus and Mercury.

Earth orbit around the sun