Since the beginning of the exploration of the universe, people have believed that the orbits of the planets in the universe will never change. But now a study suggests that was wrong. There is no order in the universe, so planets sometimes deviate from their orbits. Why is
like this? Which planets have ever strayed from their orbits?
Human beings are strange animals. No matter how good their brains are, they are sometimes imprisoned by inherent ideas. They always believed that the planets in the universe have their own orbits and will never change, but a recent changing celestial body completely shattered this view.
There has always been a planet named " Theia " in the orbit of the earth. Scientists believe that it will follow the earth forever, step by step until it dies.
But it still broke away from the orbit of the earth and began to fly in the direction of the earth. Then it collided with the earth, and part of its body was knocked out and floated to the side, forming the moon, the only satellite of the earth now.
When scientists were studying this impact event , some scientists believed that all the water on the earth originally came from the planet "Theia" and reached the earth because of the impact.
Similar changes to this have occurred on other planets, such as why the axis of Uranus is tilted, why Mercury has no mantle, and why there is such an obvious topographic contrast between the hemispheres of Mars . These may all be related to this large change out of orbit.
In the past, there were many planets in the universe, and it is very likely that their orbits were very different from now.
In fact, there are many anomalies in the solar system.
The first anomaly is: the solar system is a very vast existence, and Mercury is the closest to the sun. But compared with the range and distance of other galaxies, Mercury is still a little farther from the sun.
Every star system in the universe has at least 2-3 planets, and even more planets like the solar system will orbit the star. Of course, not all of them are planets, there are also some smaller stars that orbit larger stars.
For example, the mass of the star TOI-178 is actually only two-thirds of the sun. Then the size of this planetary system should be one-third of the solar system, but in fact, this star system is smaller than one-third of the solar system.
In this star system, there are 6 planets orbiting the main star. The farthest planet is only 0.127 sun-Earth distances from the main star.
For comparison, the distance between Mercury and the sun is at least 0.3 times the distance between the sun and the earth. In other words, the entire TOI-178 galaxy can orbit within the orbit of Mercury.
This is a very extreme example, but generally speaking, no matter how large the galaxy is, there will always be planets 0.1 ~ -0.2 au away from the main star.
The second anomaly: Unlike other galaxies, there is a very hot planet next to the star, but in the solar system, there is not even an asteroid or even cosmic dust between the sun and Mercury.
Among the galaxies currently observed, only the solar system is like this, and it cannot be explained no matter what. The third exception of
is related to the first two exceptions.
According to current research, scientists have found that there is a giant gas planet called " hot Jupiter " next to the main stars of other galaxies, but there are no giant gas planets in the planetary group of the solar system.
The fourth anomaly is that there is no super-Earth.
Super Earth refers to a planet with a solid surface. It is one of the most common planets in the universe and the most likely planet to replace the Earth.
Super Earths are generally much larger than the Earth, but they are not that heavy, not as heavy as giant ice planets such as Uranus and Neptune .
Among all the hard planets on the surface of the solar system, the earth is the largest in size and mass, so there is no super-Earth in the solar system.
Scientists explain this phenomenon simply. They believe that the solar system when it was just formed was completely different from what it is now. According to scientists' speculation, the distance between Jupiter and the sun at that time was four times as much as it is now.
I don’t know the reason. It may be the impact of an asteroid. Jupiter broke away from its original orbit and slowly moved towards the sun, finally forming the current situation.
It was a period of chaos, and various planets deviated from their orbits. Perhaps the super-Earth in the solar system was knocked out, or perhaps the solar system collided before a super-Earth could be formed.
It is worth noting that hot Jupiters in galaxies generally exist at the edges of galaxies, very far away from the main star. Perhaps this is why Jupiter is so far away from the sun.
The New End
So far, scientists have conducted detailed investigations into the universe's past, hoping to find out why planets fell out of orbit. Perhaps in the near future, planets will be deorbited.
According to scientists' speculation, in the 4.5 billion years after the formation of the solar system, some planets once derailed their orbits, but this did not occur in the calm area of the inner solar system. But in the remote areas of the solar system, big changes will occur.
Neptune's largest satellite Triton is the celestial body captured by Neptune. Before that, Triton was actually an independent dwarf planet like Pluto, but it fell out of orbit for unknown reasons and became a satellite of Neptune.
Of course, you don’t need to worry. The current solar system is very safe, because the distance between planets is very far and will not affect each other, so there should be no deorbiting.
Another special thing about the solar system is that the sun is relatively far away from other stars. Even the closest star is 4 light years away from the sun.
When the sun was first born, it was most likely formed in the very dense star cluster , and was closer to other stars than it is now. The solar system at that time was extremely unstable, probably due to the gravity of these closer stars. This shows that the solar system is extremely unstable.
Recently, scientists from Toronto submitted a report stating that as long as Neptune's orbit changes by 0.1%, the solar system may encounter a chaos that has never happened in the past 4.5 billion years. In this case, not only the outer planets but also the inner planets will be damaged.
For example, Mars would derail its path toward the sun and collide with Earth and Venus. Mercury may also collide with the Earth. Uranus and Neptune will escape from the solar system.
At that time, life on the earth will cease to exist. If the earth is lucky enough not to perish, all the volcanoes inside will erupt, and the earth will become an endless sea of lava.
Under the impact, the Earth will also be deorbited, either closer to the sun than it is now, or further away from the sun than it is now.
If it were closer to the sun, the temperature of the earth would rise sharply, all the oceans would evaporate, and the earth would become a "sauna" where all animals and plants would be "cooked."
If it is further away from the sun, the earth will be covered with ice and snow, and what awaits us is the end of freezing to death. What is the probability of
?
Scientists speculate that in the next few million years, Neptune will rapidly approach other stars, but Neptune will not deviate from its "original route" because it is too far away from its neighbor planets and will not change much.
However, we do not deny that the star Sun will move. If it moves, then in about 10,000 years, Barnard's Star will become the closest star to the Sun. But don't be fooled. This star is less than 3.8 light-years away from the Earth, and there is still a long way to go.
Author: Xiao Abe Proofreading: Chuanchuan
