The small balance of the planetary solar system.

in Popular STEM2 days ago

The small balance of the planetary solar system.




What would happen if a star got too close to the planetary solar system and destroyed everything, there is a recent study where researchers did an extensive simulation of what would happen if a star got too close to the solar system, to the planetary solar system, because it is unlikely to get close since it is very small, it is only about 5 light hours while the solar system itself can reach 365 light days.



Souce


What these researchers did was analyze what would happen if a star got too close to the area where the planets are, the worlds would leave their orbits or crash into each other or be thrown into the cold interstellar space. Obviously, if a star with its considerable mass gets too close it would make this completely crazy, but the interesting and original thing about this research is that scientists have discovered that there is a critical point.


And there is a weak link that can break the chain of planetary orbits, in most cases the passage of a star near the solar system is something "insignificant", but if it gets too close it could unleash chaos in the solar system mainly due to a single planet, the weak point the weak link is Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, these researchers have discovered that Mercury is prone to instability since its orbit can become more elliptical and thus it can impact with Venus, therefore example.



Souce


This can occur in the very long term, that is, within miles of millions of years within the movement of the planets, because they predominantly influence each other in their orbits or normally there are more or less stable orbits, the Earth's orbit is one of the most stable, curiously, but that of Mercury, which is what they have discovered now, is very sensitive. The next most sensitive would be that of Mars, but of course if a star were to get closer it would worsen the situation and Mercury would be thrown off more easily.


What this research is saying is that it is not necessary for a star to pass so close that it drives all the planets crazy, it could pass close enough or far enough to simply alter the orbit of Mercury, even if the other planets are fine, altering it a little would cause Mercury to begin to have an elliptical orbit and it could collide with Venus or it could be thrown off.


The researchers carried out 2,000 simulations using NASA's Horizons system, which is a tool from the solar system dynamics group and is used to precisely track the position of objects in our solar system, planets, asteroids, etc. They later inserted those simulations with transiting stars and detected that stellar flybys over the next 5 billion years could increase instability by 50%.



There are some dwarf planets like Pluto that has only a 3.9% probability of being expelled from the solar system while Mercury and Mars are the two planets with the highest risk of being influenced after the flyby of a star, the Earth has a lower rate of instability, but it also has a greater probability of its orbit being destabilized if it obviously collides with another planet, but well if the Earth collides with another planet I think we will care very little if the orbit destabilizes later, I don't think so. What does it matter to those of us who are left outside the Earth, because there would be no one left inside the Earth.


The important thing about this research is that it is not necessary to destabilize all the planets, it is enough for it to pass close enough to alter the orbit of Mercury so that it begins to do strange things and put the entire solar system at risk with an impact, for example, with Venus that would mean launching miles of asteroids and huge fragments into space and that is very dangerous because Venus is the planet that is closest to Earth.




Study Source




The images without reference were created with AI
Thank you for visiting my blog. If you like posts about #science, #planet, #politics, #rights #crypto, #traveling and discovering secrets and beauties of the #universe, feel free to Follow me as these are the topics I write about the most. Have a wonderful day and stay on this great platform :) :)


! The truth will set us free and science is the one that is closest to the truth!
Hello friends of the community, if you want to hunt monsters and earn Steem, try the new game HARRY-RAID you just have to enter the game, press PLAY, and show your cards, to hurt monsters.