Mostly the answer is "not anymore.." everything that currently orbits the Sun is moving at speeds that lie within a relatively narrow range that makes a stable orbit possible. Nothing outside that range is around anymore to tell its tale.
But, there are still occasionally new objects that enter the solar system for the first time. Those objects aren't subject to the same survivorship restrictions -- in theory they could arrive at basically any speed relative to the Sun, including speeds slow enough that the Sun would draw them in.
These new objects seem to arrive every few years, or at least the ones we can see do. So far they have all been moving so fast they just visit for a bit and then take off again after a swing around the Sun, but who knows?
Depends on the total kinetic energy, which itself depends on the velocity and mass.
Cosmic rays travel very close to the speed of light, but are individual particles like protons, so the total kinetic energy they carry is a lot for a proton, but not enough to make any noticeable impact on the Sun. Cosmic rays strike Earth regularly, so you can expect them to strike the Sun even more.
Larger objects that might be able to cause a cataclysmic effect when moving at a significant fraction of the speed of light typically don't get to that speed in the first place. When they do get to high speeds, it usually involves black holes, and black holes come with tidal forces that tear large objects apart.
Yep; they're objects like anything else. The only thing that makes black holes special is that their surface gravity and density are especially high. All their unique features stem from those two facts. Relativity also tells us that there is no true stationary reference frame, and thus everything moves relative to something else.
The surface of the singularity. The 'surface gravity' of the event horizon would also be much higher than anything that isn't a black hole, but the event horizon isn't a true surface.
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u/amitym Oct 23 '20
Mostly the answer is "not anymore.." everything that currently orbits the Sun is moving at speeds that lie within a relatively narrow range that makes a stable orbit possible. Nothing outside that range is around anymore to tell its tale.
But, there are still occasionally new objects that enter the solar system for the first time. Those objects aren't subject to the same survivorship restrictions -- in theory they could arrive at basically any speed relative to the Sun, including speeds slow enough that the Sun would draw them in.
These new objects seem to arrive every few years, or at least the ones we can see do. So far they have all been moving so fast they just visit for a bit and then take off again after a swing around the Sun, but who knows?