A Mysterious Object Visited Our Solar System And Altered The Orbits Of Four Planets
Long ago, a planetary object eight times the mass of Jupiter may have once visited the solar system and altered the orbits of the four outer planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. It could explain why these planets’ paths deviate slightly from the ideal orbit.
Astronomers have debated over how the planets in the solar system formed for decades. However, most agree on the type of orbit the planets should have. They should move in circles that are positioned concentrically around the sun and lie on the same plane.
Yet, none of the eight planets have orbits that are perfectly circular. Additionally, their paths do not lie on exactly the same plane.
Mercury’s orbit is the most tilted and egg-shaped, but Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have not strayed too far from the course.
“The puzzle for theoretical astrophysics has long been to figure out how the orbits later became out-of-round and tilted from their mean plane by not too much and not too little,” stated Renu Malhotra, a co-author of the new study and a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
Malhotra and colleagues considered the possibility of an interstellar visitor adjusting the planets’ paths with its presence around four billion years ago.
The team used computer models of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune to carry out 50,000 simulations of planetary flybys, each over 20 million years.
The visitor’s speed, mass, and distance from the sun were altered for each simulation as well. The researchers also considered visiting objects smaller than stars.
They looked at scenarios with the interloper passing super close to the sun, focusing on ones where it came within 20 astronomical units (AU) of the sun. One AU is approximately 93 million miles, which is about the average distance from the Earth to the sun.
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Most of the simulations created conditions that were very unlike the current solar system. But the researchers found that in roughly one percent of the simulations, the visitor’s passage modified the orbits of the four planets to basically what they are today.
In these simulations, the objects dove straight into the solar system, traveled far past Uranus’ orbit, and some even grazed Mercury’s path. They were also fairly small, ranging from two to 50 times the mass of Jupiter.
According to Malhotra, this range includes planetary masses and brown dwarf masses. Brown dwarfs are often referred to as “failed stars.” They are heavier than planets but not as massive as stars.
The simulation that generated the most realistic results involved an object eight times the mass of Jupiter. Just one interstellar object zipping past was enough to alter the trajectories of the four giant planets.
The study can be found in the arXiv preprint database.
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