Comment on what would happen if a rogue, earth-size planet ran straight into the sun? anything interesting?
FunderPants@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
I would expect that it’s gravity while heading into the sun from outside the solar system would greatly disturb the existing planets and probably throw some of them into new orbits if not out of the solar system entirely.
Tudsamfa@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Are you sure about that? If there are things I know about the solar system, it’s that the distance between planets is massive and earth weighs nothing compared to the outer planets or especially the sun.
That earth like rogue planet needs to be like 1/500th of the distance to the sun to have an comparable gravitational pull (sun is 333000 heavier, sqrt is 577), and I’m not a astronomer but I believe for each planet a random number between 0 and 2 solar distances that the rogue planet passes the orbit is appropriate. So like, 1/1000 chance a planet gets seriously disturbed…
I’m gonna be honest I thought this would be way lower before I calculated.