2023-12-05 17:31:00
A wandering star might zoom past the solar system and disrupt the orbit of its eight planets, including Earth… within a billion years.
French astronomers have calculated the chances of a wandering star passing relatively close to the Sun within a billion years, reports Science and the future. A wandering star is a planet that does not orbit any star, recall Maxisciences.
According to calculations carried out by Sean Raymond and his colleagues at the Bordeaux Astrophysics Laboratory, there would be a 1% chance that such a star would pass within the next billion years within approximately 150 million kilometers of the Soleil, explains the scientific magazine. A probability therefore low but not zero nonetheless.
How do these stars evolve in space?
The first wandering stars, also called “intergalactic” were spotted at the end of the 1990s, in the Virgo cluster in particular, specifies Science and the future.
These stars are no longer bound by gravity to their original galaxy from which they were expelled. The majority of them pose no danger, due to their trajectory or their distance from Earth.
A wandering star might pass close to the Sun and destroy the Earth! ☀
? pic.twitter.com/OEbD5616jw— Sciences et Avenir (@Sciences_Avenir) December 4, 2023
What consequences?
The researchers carried out more than 10,000 “N-body” simulations in order to predict the consequences of such a passage, depending on the masses, speeds and trajectories that the intruders might have.
Among the rather reassuring conclusions of the researchers, beyond the statistical result, “there is still a very high probability that the eight planets of the Solar System will survive”. That’s a 92% chance that none of the eight planets will be destroyed. The scenario for the remaining 8% is rather frightening: gravitational disturbances might indeed modify all or part of their orbits, with often cataclysmic consequences.
And for the Earth?
Still according to this study cited by Science and the futurethe Earth would have a 0.48% chance of colliding with the Moon or Venus.
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