NASA
The risk of a star destroying the solar system is higher than expected. Stars that pass near the solar system can take planets out of alignment by sending them at all speed to the sun or space-long before the sun annihilates our planet.
Stars that pass at all speed near our solar system can after all cause damage than astronomers thought earlier, ranging from destabilizing the orbit of Pluto to throwing mercury toward the sun – or even change the orbit catastrophically and the climate of the earth.
The conclusions are of a new one, which is in pre-publication in the arVix and will be published in the October issue of the magazine Icarus.
O overall risk Of these events remains low, but the greatest influence of the passing stars means that events like these can be common in other planetary systems.
Although the orbits of the planets were once considered so predictable and immutable as a mechanism of watchmaking, modern astronomers have found that, in long time scales, It’s anything but thatexplains a.
This internal unpredictability, or chaosIt means that it is difficult to know exactly what will happen to the Solar System in the next thousands of millions of years, with some simulations showing that one can tumble.
The most likely way this happens is in the specific case of mercury orbit align with that of Jupiterwhich can cause the smaller planet to be projected at full speed, colliding with the sun or venus, or placing the earth and Mars on a collision route.
Another source of chaos can come from Stars that pass near the sunat a distance of a few times the radius of the solar system – but these events are extremely unlikely, with only 1 % probability every billion years.
Nonovo study, Sean Raymondresearcher at the University of Bordeaux, in France, and Nathan contrastfrom the Institute of Planetary Science in Arizona, found that It’s not just rare events like these that can unbalance the solar system-even everyday star traffic risks doing so.
“We analyzed the Typical and common passages“Raymond says.” These are the stars that really pass through the sun all the time, cosmically speaking. “
Raymond and Kaib created Five simulationseach with different intensities of starfish, and each executed 1000 times. Each execution had a slightly different starting position for the eight planets From the solar system, more Pluto, and thousands of stars flying based on what we know of the local star population.
The pair found that the general probabilities of a planet in the solar system be diverted from the course They were 50 % higher than just from inner chaos.
“An instability per passage can happen at any time, while an instability caused internally It’s much more likely 4-5 billion years old, making tickets the biggest threat to the stability of the solar system for the next 4 billion years or more, ”says Raymond.
A Most surprising potential victim of the stellar intruders was Pluto, which Raymond and Kaib found to have 5 % likely to become unstable.
“In no previous study it was thought that Pluto had any chance of becoming unstable, thanks to stabilizing influence of Neptune’s gravity“Says Raymond,
The authors of the study also found that the probabilities of Mercury was released in a chaotic orbitwhat may have chain effects in other planets were between 50 to 80 % higher than previous estimatesalthough the absolute risk remained small, 0.6 % over the next thousands of millions of years.
The same happens with Mars, Venus and Earthwith its absolute risks rising to 0.3 %, 0.2 %and 0.05 %.
The orbit of the land also has 0.3 % probability of being theIn order to cause significant climate warming, says Sean Raymond. “The diversity of forms in which the solar system can be shattered It is much larger than previously thought. ”
Although the probabilities of a star disturbing the balance of our solar system in the next few millions of years remains small, rising to about 1.5 % of about 1 % likely a probability of an orbit crazy, the fact that the stars exert more influence than we thought may have implications for other planetary systemssays the astronomer.
“1 in 1000 looks nothingBut we know more than 1000 exoplanets, so it didn’t happen to us when we interpret what is out there, it matters, ”says Raymond.
