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Could we knock Earth out of its own orbit?

Asked by Qingu (21185points) October 17th, 2010

Is it physically possible to use current technology to knock Earth out of its own orbit?

I guess another way of phrasing this is: is there enough kinetic energy stored in Earth’s capacity for thermonuclear weapons to actually disrupt Earth’s orbit enough to change it? (I imagine, in principle, this wouldn’t be different than how satellites correct their orbits with rocket fire.)

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