Not exactly the final story they settled on, but surprisingly close.

That's still not how the comic goes either though; Cybertron was never knocked out of orbit by the war (though there are giant engines built into the planet that Megatron was trying to use for that purpose in The War Within) and they didn't punch through an asteroid belt to reach Earth.

Well, they eventually return to Cybertron at some point before the movie because they're well aware of it by the movie and travel back and forth fairly frequently. To begin with, Prime, Megatron and their crews are considered lost and presumed dead and Shockwave takes over leadership of the Decepticons and drives the Autobots almost to defeat. I'm not so up on my G1 cartoon lore so I forget how they reestablish contact but there is eventually a space bridge (which is more of teleporter than an actual bridge linking two planets , which would be just stupid) built on Earth within Autobot City and the Deceps eventually construct one too. Though they continue to use the old fashioned method of shuttles to ferry back and forth too.