Solar system montage of the nine planets and moons of Jupiter in our solar system.
Nationalgeographic.co.id – The arrangement of our solar system is so perfect, that all the planets are running in their respective places without giving any disturbance to the others.
However, if a terrestrial planet were to hover between Mars and Jupiter, it would be able to push Earth out of the solar system and wipe out life on the planet, according to the UC Riverside experiment.
University of California Riverside astrophysicist Stephen Kane explains that his experiment is meant to address two important gaps in planetary science. Where this gap could be the point of fragility of our solar system.
The first is a gap in our solar system between the size of a terrestrial and gas giant planet. The largest terrestrial planet is Earth, and the smallest gas giant is Neptune, which is four times wider and 17 times more massive than Earth. Luckily, there’s nothing in between.
“In other star systems there are lots of planets with masses in that gap. We call them super-Earths,” said Kane.
Another gap exists in location, relative to the sun, between Mars and Jupiter. “Planetary scientists often wish there was something between the two planets. It seems like a wasted thing,” he said.
These gaps can offer important insights into the architecture of our solar system, and into Earth’s evolution.
To complement this, Kane ran a dynamic computer simulation of a planet between Mars and Jupiter with different mass ranges, and then observed the effect on the orbits of all the other planets.
The results, published February 28, 2023 in Planetary Science Journal dengan tajuk “The Dynamical Consequences of a Super-Earth in the Solar System.”
This illustration shows the approximate sizes of the planets in our Solar System relative to one another.
This is mostly a disaster for the solar system. “This fictional planet gave Jupiter enough boost to mess things up,” said Kane. “Although many astronomers wanted this extra planet, luckily we don’t have one.”
Jupiter is much larger than all the other planets combined; its mass is 318 times that of Earth, so its gravitational influence is enormous. If a super-Earth in our solar system, a passing star or other celestial body slightly interferes with Jupiter, then all the other planets will be greatly affected.
