Study Predicts Sun Will Dissolve Outer Solar System Within 1 Billion Years as It Becomes a White Dwarf
Updated
Updated · IFLScience · Oct 7
Study Predicts Sun Will Dissolve Outer Solar System Within 1 Billion Years as It Becomes a White Dwarf
1 articles · Updated · IFLScience · Oct 7
Summary
A new Astrophysical Journal Letters study says the outer Solar System will cease to exist in its current form within 1 billion years after the Sun becomes a white dwarf.
The trigger is the Sun’s mass loss as it dies: if that shedding is episodic rather than smooth, it can destabilize giant-planet orbits long before the white-dwarf stage.
Simulations show Uranus and Neptune could swap places, or Uranus, Neptune, or even Saturn could be ejected as the ice giants fall into resonant orbits.
That sharply shortens earlier estimates that Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune could remain stable for 100 billion years or even far longer.
The study shifts the likely cause of the Solar System’s eventual breakup from slow orbital chaos or passing stars to the Sun’s own transformation from red giant to white dwarf.