One planet can end life on Earth: how scientists have proven the fragility of the solar system

Scientists conducted an experiment to address two notable gaps in our knowledge of the planets.

How it appeared
Solar system?

The solar system formed about 4.5 billionyears ago from a dense cloud of interstellar gas and dust. At some point, it collapsed, possibly due to the shock wave of a nearby exploding star. This is how the solar nebula appeared - a rotating disk of stellar matter.

Gravity pulled more and morematerial to its center. Eventually, the pressure in the core became so great that the hydrogen atoms began to combine and form helium, releasing a huge amount of energy. And so the Sun appeared, having collected more than 99% of the available matter of the nebula. But it didn't end there.

The matter in the disk continued to stick together.Its fragments crashed into each other, forming larger and larger objects. Some of them have grown so much that gravity has turned them into spheres. So there were planets, ordinary and dwarf, as well as their moons. The rest of the matter was left out of work, becoming the asteroid belt, which consists of pieces of the early solar system. Other, smaller, remaining pieces became asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and small, irregular moons.

How did the planets of the solar system form?

Order and location of planets and othersbodies in our solar system are determined by how it was formed. When the Sun first appeared and was much hotter than it is now, only rocky materials could withstand extreme temperatures. For this reason, the first four planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars—are terrestrial planets. They are all small, with a hard rocky surface.

Meanwhile, the materials that we are used toseen in the form of ice, liquid or gas, settled in the outer regions of the young Solar System. Gravity pulled them together, and that is where the gas giants are located - Jupiter and Saturn, as well as the icy ones - Uranus and Neptune. But what would happen if another planet appeared in the established system?

According to an experiment by the CalifornianUniversity at Riverside, a terrestrial planet hovering between Mars and Jupiter could push Earth out of the solar system and wipe out life on the planet. Why assume this? The study's lead author, astrophysicist Stephen Kane, explained that he conducted the experiment to address prominent gaps in planetary science.

What do we not know about the solar system?

The first question that has been bothering me for a long timescientists, why in the solar system there is such a large gap between the sizes of terrestrial and giant gas planets. For example, there is Earth, the largest terrestrial planet, and Neptune, the smallest gas giant, which is four times wider and 17 times more massive than Earth. And there are no intermediate objects between them. For example, in other star systems there are many planets with intermediate masses. Astronomers call them super-Earths.

The second question is the location relative to the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. “Something in between is asking for something in between. It seems like a waste of space,” explains Stephen Kane.

These gaps deprive science of important informationabout the architecture of the solar system and the evolution of the Earth. To fill them in, Kane ran dynamic computer simulations of a planet between Mars and Jupiter with different mass ranges, and then observed the effects on the orbits of all the other planets.

What did the scientists find out?

Results published in the journalPlanetary Science Journal showed that it is good that this hypothetical planet between Mars and Jupiter does not exist. The consequences would be catastrophic for the solar system. According to the simulation, the fictional planet's gravity would destabilize it. And here's why.

“Even though many astronomers have dreamed of an extra planet in the solar system, it’s good that we don’t have one.”

Jupiter is much larger than all the other planetstaken together; Its mass is 318 times that of the Earth, which is why its gravitational influence is so great. If a super-Earth appeared in the solar system and disturbed the gas giant even a little, all the other planets would be greatly damaged.

Depending on weight and accuracylocation of the super-Earth, its presence could eventually throw Mercury, Venus and even Earth out of the solar system. It also destabilized the orbits of Uranus and Neptune, throwing them into outer space. In addition, a super-Earth would change the shape of our planet's orbit, making it much more uninhabitable.

Why is it important?

The study has implications for the search for extraterrestriallife. Although Jupiter-like planets, gas giants located far from their host stars, are found only 10% of the time, their presence appears to influence the stability of the orbits of nearby Earth-like planets.

In addition, the results of the study raisemore respect for the delicate order that holds the planets together around the sun. “The solar system is more finely tuned than I previously thought. Everything works like an intricate clockwork mechanism. Add an extra detail, and everything will break,” the astrophysicist concludes.

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