For Udoboy, and anyone concerned:
A little research into the "Terra" issue. Terra is Latin for Earth, however you were using it without any declaration that it is not of the English language, and therefore you were using the English Terra, which does NOT mean earth, rather, by the International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather than for the planet Earth.
We may be Terrestrials, but so is any being from any planet that is primarily composed of silicate rocks (as Earth, Venus, Mercury, and Mars are). So your use of "Terra" as a synonym for "Earth" is incorrect.

Posted By: Cody56

Some small wobbles, yes, but wouldn't that eventually put it millions, even billions of light years off course?
That is the Butterfly Effect at work my dear colleague.

The way Pluto was discovered was due to a wobble in the orbit of Neptune. Since I haven't been a practicising astrophysicst in a while, I can no longer give specific computations, but that minor wobble has been going on for 100s of millions of years and that has not caused Neptune to fly out into extra-solar-systemic space. So the answer is, an effect can easily have an impact on an objects orbit but not cause that object to leave orbit, even in the long run.

The butterfly effect is all about probability. Yes, there is a probability that earth gets nudged in one direction or another, but there is an equal probability that it would be nudged back to its original course. This would be "small wobbles." Not humongous deviations in course. Anything other than that would be so incredibly improbable that it doesn't even matter.

This is why the butterfly effect makes more sense on the quantum scale, where things happen much more often, and with a greater force:mass ratio.

I think you misunderstood me in the first place. What I was trying to say was that a gravitational pull would slightly throw the Earth off-course (The change in trajectory would vary depending on what pulled the Earth). Therefore, millions of light years from where the Earth started, it would be astronomically off-course.

Posted By: Fact totum

how would one be able to tell the trjectory has changed without some frame of reference? How does the law of inertia hold up against gravity?

Well, if we can find the original spot that the Earth was when the Sun disappeared, we could easily find the angular speed of the Earth and convert it into a formula finding the original trajectory.

By definition there's no such thing as a body being free from outside forces, so to say a body in motion will stay in motion until it is affected by an outside force, isn't practical since everything is always affected by bazllions of outside forces (every other body's gravitational pull)[/p]

While that is true, an object even 100x the Sun's size one light year away from the Earth (or any body) would have a gravitational pull, its effect would be so small that it probably wouldn't even pull it a nanometer off-course.

A body traveling through intergallactic space would have even less influnces acting on it.[/p]

So I guess a body traveling through mostly unoccupied interstellar or intergallactic space would wobble it's way forward according to the laws of motion, with insignificant changes due to the gravitational effect of far-off bodies until and unless it gets near enough to some body that the other body's gravity has a meaurable effect.

That is true, but I was talking about when the Earth was still in the Sol System and had large bodies like Jupiter, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt to mess it up. Also, since the Universe doesn't end, the Earth (assuming it doesn't crash into anything) would eventually pass by another galaxy or solar system. We might even find a new star to orbit!

But Venus, Earth's twin, and Mars would definitely have at least some impact.

Posted By: Cody56

That is true, but I was talking about when the Earth was still in theSolSystem and had large bodies like Jupiter, Mars, and the Asteroid Belt to mess it up. Also, since the Universe doesn't end, the Earth (assuming it doesn't crash into anything) would eventually pass by another galaxy or solar system. We might even find a new star to orbit!

The sun currently orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy. It stands to reason that Terra cannot leave the Milky Way galaxy even if relieved of the sun's gravitational pull.

And as for the Terra argument above, I suppose you'd like to argue with Robert Heinlein about it?

Which brings me to a question. How thick is the Milky Way's spiral? It seems to me that the spiral we've got going would collapse into a giant ball of some sort. Unless the black hole works like a sink. But that would only work if everything was being sucked from one flat surface. Hmmm... any suggestions?

Is that deserving of a smiting?

A violent storm is brewing (actually there is) and it must be a sign from the Pagan Gods of Old demanding a smiting! Quickly Athene! Before they breathe life into the rotting corpses of our foes and rain down bloated and diseased rats from the heavens!

Posted By: Cody56

A violent storm is brewing (actually there is) and it must be a sign from the Pagan Gods of Old demanding a smiting! Quickly Athene! Before they breathe life into the rotting corpses of our foes and rain down bloated and diseased rats from the heavens!

Well, if you insist....

By 'debate' I really mean 'render an ass-whupping upon'

Yes. I find they are safest. I haven't lost a fight to a dead person in a very long time.

I'd take Heinlein's fiction over most authors' reality any day.

I'm pretty sure that if the sun ceased to exist, the earth would not feel the gravitational effect right away either, according to Einsteins general theory of relativity. It would create a wave in space-time and earth would stray of from its elliptical path as soon as the last of the sun's light reaches earth, because light and the force of gravity travel at the same speed.