Experiment demonstrates our solar system’s fragility. A terrestrial planet hovering between Mars and Jupiter would be able to push Earth out of the solar system and wipe out life on this planet, according to a University of California, Riverside (UCR) experiment. UCR astrophysicist Stephen Kane
This solar system montage of the nine planets and four large moons of Jupiter in our solar system are set against a false-color view of the Rosette Nebula. The light emitted from the Rosette Nebula results from the presence of hydrogen , oxygen , and sulfur . Most of the planetary images in this montage were obtained by NASA’s planetary missions, which have dramatically changed our understanding of the solar system in the past 30 years.
This illustration shows the approximate sizes of the planets in our Solar System relative to each other. Outward from the Sun, the planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, followed by the dwarf planet Pluto. Jupiter’s diameter is about 11 times that of the Earth’s and the Sun’s diameter is about 10 times Jupiter’s. Pluto’s diameter is slightly less than one-fifth of Earth’s. The planets are not shown at the appropriate distance from the Sun.
These gaps could offer important insights into the architecture of our solar system, and into Earth’s evolution. To fill them in, Kane ran dynamic computer simulations of a planet between Mars and Jupiter with a range of different masses, and then observed the effects on the orbits of all other planets., were mostly disastrous for the solar system. “This fictional planet gives a nudge to Jupiter that is just enough to destabilize everything else,” Kane said.
Depending on the mass and exact location of a super-Earth, its presence could ultimately eject Mercury andand Neptune, tossing them into outer space as well.
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