News Planetary Science

Solar system’s future could be bumpy

Study calculates the odds that two planets collide or one crashes into sun in the next 5 billion years

By Sid Perkins

- More than 2 years ago

It’s happened before, and it could happen again: Planets in the inner solar system may collide if gravitational interactions substantially disturb now-stable orbits, a new study suggests.

PLANETARY BUMPER CARS. Chaotic perturbations of orbits, largely due to the gravitational effects of Jupiter, could send planets in the inner solar system crashing into one another (such as Mars and Earth, illustrated here) sometime in the next 5 billion years, a new study suggests.