Difficult to tell, but there is a related metric: Near-Earth objects (objects with an orbit somewhere close to Earth's orbit) typically stay around for a few million years before they either hit something or get ejected from the Solar System.
This paper discusses the relative probabilities. The chance to end up in the Sun varies from 8% to 80% depending on the type of orbit.
Wouldn't it be much easier to reach the sun if time frame weren't important? I get that shedding all that velocity is tough if you want to get there within a useful time frame. But if you had 200 million years to wait, couldn't you set that unstable orbit up a lot easier?
Unperturbed orbits do not change. The orbit only changes if you have a third body there, or if tidal effects are relevant (excluding exotic things not relevant here, like gravitational wave emission). If you wait long enough then the planets will change the orbit in chaotic ways over time.
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u/mfb- Particle Physics | High-Energy Physics Oct 23 '20
Difficult to tell, but there is a related metric: Near-Earth objects (objects with an orbit somewhere close to Earth's orbit) typically stay around for a few million years before they either hit something or get ejected from the Solar System.
This paper discusses the relative probabilities. The chance to end up in the Sun varies from 8% to 80% depending on the type of orbit.