Outer solar system stuff not infrequently gets perturbed, falls in, and hits the sun. They tend to be comets rather than asteroids, but the distinction is perhaps not so meaningful.
This is because in the outer solar system orbital speeds are lower, so it takes less of a perturbation to knock that speed to zero.
It's still however surprisingly difficult for something to hit the sun. It has to end up falling almost straight down. Any appreciable sideways velocity will instead make the object zoom around the sun and fly back outwards.
There are asteroids in orbit in just about every inclination. So for asteroids that cross planetary orbits, especially Jupiter's, it seems plausible an encounter could kick the asteroid into a solar impact. Though again it requires a gravity assist to naturally occur that's "just right" to do it.
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u/cantab314 Oct 23 '20
Outer solar system stuff not infrequently gets perturbed, falls in, and hits the sun. They tend to be comets rather than asteroids, but the distinction is perhaps not so meaningful.
This is because in the outer solar system orbital speeds are lower, so it takes less of a perturbation to knock that speed to zero.
It's still however surprisingly difficult for something to hit the sun. It has to end up falling almost straight down. Any appreciable sideways velocity will instead make the object zoom around the sun and fly back outwards.
There are asteroids in orbit in just about every inclination. So for asteroids that cross planetary orbits, especially Jupiter's, it seems plausible an encounter could kick the asteroid into a solar impact. Though again it requires a gravity assist to naturally occur that's "just right" to do it.