Does the earth orbit the sun in a circle or a spiral

Question

if the earth does orbit the sun in a spiral, instead of a circle, then we can calculate the distance and time for the earth to be consumed by the sun.

Answer 1

Well a spiral its like a spring either going down or up if you follow it. But i think that the Earth is orbiting the sun in a oval because in Winter the Earth is closer to the Sun, but tilted differently. In Summer the Earth is far from the Sun but tilited to have more heat.

Answer 2

  If it was orbiting too fast to maintain orbit it would spiral away if it was too slow it would crash into the sun.

Answer 3

Not a circle...but..in an eliptical orbit.

More like an oval shaped orbit.

The Earth won't come to the sun...but.rather the reverse.

The sun will swell into a red giant in about 5 billion years...thereby, consuming at least Mercury and Venus..and more likely the Earth as well.

Answer 4

>does the earth orbit the sun in a circle or a spiral

Neither. It orbits the Sun in a path that approximates an ellipse, which in turn is fairly close to a circle. An ellipse can be thought of as a 'stretched circle', and some of them are closer to circles than others. For example, the orbit of Venus is more circular than that of Earth, but the orbit of Pluto is less circular, and the orbits of other objects such as comets are far more stretched even than Pluto's orbit. Although an orbit in an ideal two-body system would be a perfect ellipse, in the real world various other objects interact with each other to introduce small 'bumps' in the orbit.