Random question of the day

[Redsgirl]

Sunday evening movie with the kids tonight is Deep impact.
Not as good as Armageddon I know but that's beside the point.  What I want to know is, what propels a meteor through space? If most of the other stuff is just hanging about its own patch, doing its predictable spinny, orbity thing, why do these things come through like they're rocket powered? If it's some kind of momentum do they eventually just slow down and float about?
I probably should know this but I have only just thought about and realised I actually don't.
Clever people, I await your responses.

[doubleup]

If most of the other stuff is just hanging about its own patch

nothing is doing that

edit Was looking for a link, but everything in the universe is dynamic although it might seem to us to be stable in our time scale.  There are all sorts of objects in the vicinity of our solar system that can interact with each other unpredictably and theoretically hit our planet, but it is unlikely that they will.

2nd edit

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuiper_belt

[Doobs]

If most of the other stuff is just hanging about its own patch

nothing is doing that

V good answer.  Anyone can answer this one?

Quantum mechanics wtf?

[RED-DOG]

If most of the other stuff is just hanging about its own patch

nothing is doing that

V good answer.  Anyone can answer this one?

Quantum mechanics wtf?

Itty bitty shit doing impossible things.

[Redsgirl]

If most of the other stuff is just hanging about its own patch

nothing is doing that

Okaay,  now I've just realised that although I flippantly used a daft sentence I did think that things were kind of fixed into a sort of 'space map'. I know it's all expanding but I thought the locations were all the same.
I have also realised that I'm am going to look stupider by the minute.
Oh well, it's done now.  

[doubleup]

It is prob just that we have no sense of the speed of orbiting objects.  For instance the sun is 150m km away so the earth travels (roughly) in a circle of 150m km radius or 3.14 x 300m km - 942m km - that means it is moving through space at ~107500km per hour.  So obviously if another orbiting object hits it, it could well be a high speed collision.





cliffs: we're doomed

[Redsgirl]

It is prob just that we have no sense of the speed of orbiting objects.  For instance the sun is 150m km away so the earth travels (roughly) in a circle of 150m km radius or 3.14 x 300m km - 942m km - that means it is moving through space at ~107500km per hour.  So obviously if another orbiting object hits it, it could well be a high speed collision.






cliffs: we're doomed

I seem to be having trouble phrasing my question properly.
I get that everything is moving and I know that things are pulled into orbit by the gravity of bigger things and it's all moving outwards at the same time but, and this is a big but, what is moving a meteor or a comet?
Are they like shrapnel from explosions? That is why I asked about momentum and if it would run out.
Or are they like, endlessly falling?  Although there isnt really down or up in space is is there?
Is stuff ricocheting off each other like billiard balls, and if so does speed and mass and all that work the same way or do those rules not apply out there?
I'm making my brains hurt now, I can't believe I never thought about this before, and all of my trying to ask my question just leads to more questions :0

[RED-DOG]

It is prob just that we have no sense of the speed of orbiting objects.  For instance the sun is 150m km away so the earth travels (roughly) in a circle of 150m km radius or 3.14 x 300m km - 942m km - that means it is moving through space at ~107500km per hour.  So obviously if another orbiting object hits it, it could well be a high speed collision.






cliffs: we're doomed

I seem to be having trouble phrasing my question properly.
I get that everything is moving and I know that things are pulled into orbit by the gravity of bigger things and it's all moving outwards at the same time but, and this is a big but, what is moving a meteor or a comet?
Are they like shrapnel from explosions? That is why I asked about momentum and if it would run out.
Or are they like, endlessly falling?  Although there isnt really down or up in space is is there?
Is stuff ricocheting off each other like billiard balls, and if so does speed and mass and all that work the same way or do those rules not apply out there?
I'm making my brains hurt now, I can't believe I never thought about this before, and all of my trying to ask my question just leads to more questions :0

Yes. It's like shrapnel from an explosion and it won't slow down until it hits something.

[doubleup]

Everything in the solar system is moving at high speed, most of it round the sun.   There are loads of bits and pieces with all sorts of orbits that interact with each other and the planets.  I think the theory is that the solar system evolved from a spinning disk of gas and dust.  So then all the objects have always been moving at high speed around the sun.  

The apocalyptic meteor/asteroid is just something orbiting the sun (formed from the spinning disk) that either has always had a possibility of hitting earth because the orbits cross or something that has had its orbit changed by perhaps some collision.  

[tikay]

If most of the other stuff is just hanging about its own patch

nothing is doing that

V good answer.  Anyone can answer this one?

Quantum mechanics wtf?

Itty bitty shit doing impossible things.

Ha, very good, very good indeed. Inexplicable, & fascinating. 

[neeko]

Things don't slow down in space as there is no friction, as it is a vacuum.

On earth an object slows down due  to the air that gets in its way, in space there is nothing. They continue in a straight line for ever (unless gravity of an object bends their route)

[Doobs]

If most of the other stuff is just hanging about its own patch

nothing is doing that

V good answer.  Anyone can answer this one?

Quantum mechanics wtf?

Itty bitty shit doing impossible things.

Ha, very good, very good indeed. Inexplicable, & fascinating. 

I like it, but of it was correct, this reply would be impossible too.

Btw your old mucker, Marc Wright just won the GUKPT Grand Final.

[DropTheHammer]

"Renee Busts – 26/11/2016 – 16:53
Renee Xie three bet shoves her 13,000 stack and is called by Marc Wright.
Renee has the best hand tabling AK  against the  A9 of Marc.
The flop comes  343 giving Marc a flush draw.
The turn card comes 9 as Marc turns top pair.
The river card 6
Marc takes the pot with two pair as we lose Renee Xie from the field."

[Redsgirl]

Things don't slow down in space as there is no friction, as it is a vacuum.

On earth an object slows down due  to the air that gets in its way, in space there is nothing. They continue in a straight line for ever (unless gravity of an object bends their route)

This.  I get this.
I wasn't quite sure what I was asking, but your answer combined with the little I do know has satisfied my curiosity.
Thanks to other contributors of course, I know it isn't easy to make sense of anything I say.

[TightEnd]

"Renee Busts – 26/11/2016 – 16:53
Renee Xie three bet shoves her 13,000 stack and is called by Marc Wright.
Renee has the best hand tabling AK  against the  A9 of Marc.
The flop comes  343 giving Marc a flush draw.
The turn card comes 9 as Marc turns top pair.
The river card 6
Marc takes the pot with two pair as we lose Renee Xie from the field."

what's the question here?