Scientists Simulate , the Catastrophic Consequences, of a Stellar Fly-By.
A recent study from the University of Toronto
investigated what would happen if a wayward star
happened to fly a little too close to our solar system.
Scientists Garett Brown and Hanno Rein's project shines
a light on the potentially devastating effects of minor
shifts in the orbits of our neighboring planets.
The team ran nearly, 3,000 simulations , of a potential stellar fly-by.
The simulation helped the team
examine the subsequent effects of such
an event up to 4.8 billion years later.
According to the results,
just a 0.1% shift in Neptune's orbit could plunge
the whole solar system into complete chaos.
The Byte reports that , 960 of the 3,000 simulations , resulted in insignificant changes.
These weak perturbations don’t destroy the solar system immediately, they just wiggle it around a little bit, and over the next millions or billions of years something goes unstable, Hanno Rein, Scientist at the University of Toronto, via The Byte.
That means that the catastrophic collapse
of the solar system is a process that could
take billions of years to reach a conclusion. .
According to researchers, an event of this
magnitude only occurs in our corner of the
universe about once every 100 billion years. .
The Byte suggests that while this might
sound like a terrifying possibility,
it is unlikely to occur any time soon.