According to a study released Wednesday in
Nature, a force known as orbital chaos could "cause our Solar System to go haywire," leading Earth to smash into Venus or possibly Mars, the AFP reports. Most likely, the sun and solar system will continue on for another five billion years. At that point, the sun will become a red giant and engulf the inner planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars).
But it turns out that we can't predict the course of celestial mechanics--the motion of our planets--more than a few tens of millions of years into the future, said Jacques Laskar, a researcher at the Observatoire de Paris and lead author of the study, in the report. That led to some fancy computer modeling using Einstein's theory of general relativity, which hadn't been done before.
Laskar's group ran over 2,700 computer simulations. They found that over 200 of them caused the four inner planets and the sun to be in a five-way accident, with Earth "being smashed to pieces" in several dozen of them a few billion years from now. The likely culprit? Mercury, which has a lopsided orbit and the smallest mass--meaning that it could (eventually) be easily destabilized, causing a chain reaction.
A BBC video showing the collision is after the jump. (Image credit: IMCCE-CNRS)
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June 11, 2009 11:45 AM
This is really interesting, and I wouldn't have heard about it otherwise!
There are TONS of chaotic influences on celestial mechanics - the first thing you learn when you're a second year Astronomy student is to avoid those influences entirely, otherwise your results will wind up skewed at best, or at worst you'll be overwhelmed trying to take into account forces that behave in very odd ways.
June 11, 2009 2:06 PM
Oh Well....By then we'll be living in giant gas bubbles on Neptune.
June 11, 2009 2:23 PM
This is absolutely ridiculous. Yeah, I admit it makes for a good "Armageddon II" but this just doesn't line up for real life. Basing everything on stupid computer models?!?! Really, we're that dumb? Tell me something new! Idiots. Those scientist really think their something smart to be able to predict up to 5 billion years from now or even a few million. What they are missing is everything that's going to happen to the earth between that time. Maybe the oceans will flood, maybe Global Warming will FINALLY happen, maybe a huge TSUNAMI will occur. No one knows, but God. He created the universe, so you should ask Him about it!
June 11, 2009 3:00 PM
What should we do about it?
June 11, 2009 5:04 PM
duck and cover!
June 11, 2009 5:36 PM
In so much less time, man would have already distroyed earth (as he is already doing).
June 11, 2009 6:58 PM
I think we should have more computer models with more animation and longer duration maybe showing post collision planets and debis moving off into space and colliding with Neptune and the gas bubble guy :)
June 11, 2009 7:56 PM
@Micah: Seriously? It's not like people are just dreaming these models up - they're based on the mathematics that we see around us and explain the behavior of things happening RIGHT NOW. Admittedly there's only so far you can take chaos theory, but seriously - before you go dissing scientists and scientific modeling, study up on some rotational kinematics, okay?
To that point - this doesn't really matter guys! By the time this all happens the Sun will have started to run out of hydrogen fuel and start burning helium. It'll swell up and envelop most of the inner planets...by that time, it won't really matter! ;)
June 11, 2009 10:25 PM
If I am alive in 3 billion years I would pray for something to put an end to it all. Micah, you are absolutely spot on. Most of these so called "scientists" are nothing more than shills paid by the government to come up with crap to make scare us into paying more and more in taxes for them to "find the answer" and save us all from self destruction. There is no way in the world that we can destroy the earth or save it from whatever is going to happen. God made it and someday he will bring final judgement and wrath upon his creation. All who believe and receive His gift of Jesus Christ as our savior will be saved and will spend eternity with God in a brand new earth with no pain, no evil, no imperfections of any kind. God has already shown us that we can not really explain many things. Trust in Him. Accept his gift and stop wasting time and money on things we will never control. PRAY
June 12, 2009 8:58 AM
This is all Bush's fault, but Obama will keep it from happening by nationalizing some more industries.
June 12, 2009 12:32 PM
I say we nuke it (Mercury) from orbit...its the only way to be sure.
June 15, 2009 12:24 AM
Interesting but they cant predict exactly the weather of tomorow so i wont be surprise if its not gonna happen even if i wont be there. :(
June 15, 2009 11:52 PM
oh wow. the creation-i mean psuedoscientists are out in full force, eh?
"STOP USING YOUR BRAIN BLAH BLAH CONSPIRACY GOVERNMENT BLAH JUST PRAY." Seriously folks, we were given the ability to think and reason...for a reason! That is, if you insist on looking at it in terms of religion. I prefer to keep my church and laboratory separate, thank you! :D