The solar system could be doomed to disaster once the Sun dies, if the mysterious “Planet Nine” finally exists, according to a study carried out by the University of Warwick (England) and collected in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical magazine. Society.
Planet Nine is the hypothetical planet that could have the mass of Neptune and an elliptical orbit 10 times farther from the Sun than Pluto, at a distance of 400 to 1,500 astronomical units.
This distant planet, whose evidence of its existence was presented earlier this year, could cause the elimination of at least one of the giant planets of our solar system and the expulsion into interstellar space of other planets, after the death of our main star, the Sun, through a kind of “Pinball effect” .
And it is that when the sun begins its final journey, around 7,000 million years from now, it will expel half of its own mass and swell, engulfing the Earth -because of its proximity- before becoming a fiery mass. The Earth will be devoured, but the rest of the planets like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune will be thrown to a safe distance.
However, the existence of Planet Nine would rewrite this story. The researchers determined that this mysterious planet could not be pushed in the same way, but instead start a deadly dance with the other giant planets such as Uranus and Neptune, causing it to be expelled forever from the solar system.
According to computer simulations, the more massive the planet and the further away it is, the greater the probability that the solar system will experience a violent future and a fatal outcome.
“ The existence of a distant massive planet could radically change the fate of the solar system and of Uranus and Neptune, in particular, which could no longer be safe from the rales of the Sun. The fate of the solar system will depend on the properties of mass and of the orbit of Planet Nine, if it exists ”, explains Dimitri Veras, leader of the study.
