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Earth Could Collide With Other Planets

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i-like-my-crust-liquified dept.

Everybody put on your helmet; Smivs writes "Astronomers calculate there is a tiny chance that Mars or Venus could collide with Earth — though it would not happen for at least a billion years. The finding comes from simulations to show how orbits of planets might evolve billions of years into the future. But the calculated chances of such events occurring are tiny. Writing in the journal Nature, a team led by Jacques Laskar shows there is also a chance Mercury could strike Venus and merge into a larger planet. Professor Laskar of the Paris Observatory and his colleagues also report that Mars might experience a close encounter with Jupiter — whose massive gravity could hurl the Red Planet out of our Solar System."

2 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. could could could by bradgoodman · · Score: 0, Redundant

    could...could...could!!

  2. Re:Or earth could turn into an elephant by jeffb+(2.718) · · Score: 1, Redundant

    Here's a straight copy of the description, since I know almost nothing about the domain it's describing:

    The model for the integration of the planetary orbits is derived from the La2004 model9 that was integrated over 250 Myr for the study of the palaeoclimates of the Earth and Mars9, 12. It comprises the eight major planets and Pluto and includes relativistic13 and averaged lunar contributions14 (Supplementary Information). We used the SABA4 symplectic integrator15, which is adapted to perturbed Hamiltonian systems. The step size is 2.5x10^-2 years, unless the eccentricity of the planets increases beyond about 0.4, in which case the step size is reduced to preserve numerical accuracy.

    9. Laskar, J. et al. A long term numerical solution for the insolation quantities of the Earth. Astron. Astrophys. 428, 261-285 (2004)
    12. Laskar, J. et al. Long term evolution and chaotic diffusion of the insolation quantities of Mars. Icarus 170, 343-364 (2004)
    13. Saha, P. & Tremaine, S. Long-term planetary integration with individual time steps. Astron. J. 108, 1962-1969 (1994)
    14. Boué, G. & Laskar, J. Precession of a planet with a satellite. Icarus 196, 1-15 (2008)
    15. Laskar, J. & Robutel, P. High order symplectic integrators for perturbed Hamiltonian systems. Celest. Mech. Dynam. Astron. 80, 39-62 (2001)