Quote:
Originally Posted by multiweb
The gas giants orbits tightened closer to the sun before moving back to where they are now so the inner objects were many and colliding a lot more.
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This is what I'm getting at - I thought orbits were a function of mass and velocity?
How can Jupiter change orbits without changing its mass or velocity?
How can the additional mass of an extra moon *not change the earth's orbit?
Given such a large impact, I'm amazed our orbit isn't more eccentric.
But maybe, as you say, we have Jupiter to thank for that. But even so, presumably the earth would have been in a different orbit pre-Theia?
Markus