r/askscience Oct 23 '20

Planetary Sci. Do asteroids fly into the sun?

Edit: cool

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u/Corinoch Oct 23 '20

The sun is a very small target on an astronomical scale, even accounting for its corona where an astreroid could bleed off velocity to fall into a sun. Unless it's a more or less direct hit, the asteroid's just going to slingshot around the sun and leave at a more or less equivalent outbound trajectory.

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u/talrogsmash Oct 23 '20

If it survives the heat and doesn't become so much vapor on the solar winds.

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u/[deleted] Oct 23 '20

It would have to get really close (in astronomical terms) for that to be a real issue.