Can the Solar System's Chaos Lead to Earth's Sudden Demise?

Join the discussion
Registration is free. Start your own thread to ask a follow-up.
6 replies · 2K views
wolram
Gold Member
Dearly Missed
Messages
4,411
Reaction score
552
Can anyone predict where the planets will be in 1 million years time, could the Earth be kicked out of orbit
a far quicker way to die than waiting for the sun to go nova?
 
Astronomy news on Phys.org
wolram said:
Can anyone predict where the planets will be in 1 million years time, could the Earth be kicked out of orbit
a far quicker way to die than waiting for the sun to go nova?

Why do you think like that ?

Sun will die about 4.5 billion years later so I don't think anything will happen.
 
wolram said:
Can anyone predict where the planets will be in 1 million years time

yes, there are computer programs that can do that
Arman777 said:
Why do you think like that ?

Sun will die about 4.5 billion years later so I don't think anything will happen.

indeed

in the full lifetime of the Sun and the rest of the solar system, a million years is less than a tick of the second hand of the time clock
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Tazerfish and Arman777
Size, shape and orientation of the orbit will probably be pretty accurate after 1 million years. Position on this orbit will not. That's because a small error in semi-major axis will lead to a small error in period, which will lead to a small error in position. Year after year, this error builds.
 
  • Like
Likes   Reactions: Tazerfish
"Kicked out of orbit" is incredibly unlikely, especially ithing only a million years. Note that we have gone 4000x as long since the Late Heavy Bombardment.
 
Thank you for all the replies, I will have to spend some time looking at these papers.