Until now, most scientists had assumed that many of our neighbours – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – would be able to survive the death of our star. They had predicted that the inflation of the Sun would swallow the Earth but would then become a white dwarf, pushing those planets to a safe distance.
At least one of those existing planets will probably be thrown out into interstellar space because of the strange potential make-up of our solar system, according to new research from Dimitri Veras at the University of Warwick.
The work was done using a special code that can simulate the death of planetary systems. When the hypothetical Planet Nine was added to the mix, the projection changed dramatically – it showed that the further away and bigger the planet is, the more likely it will lead to the solar system undergoing the predicted violent future.
"The existence of a distant massive planet could fundamentally change the fate of the solar system,” Dr Veras said in a statement. “Uranus and Neptune in particular may no longer be safe from the death throes of the Sun. The fate of the solar system would depend on the mass and orbital properties of Planet Nine, if it exists.
"The future of the Sun may be foreshadowed by white dwarfs that are 'polluted' by rocky debris. Planet Nine could act as a catalyst for the pollution. The Sun's future identity as a white dwarf that could be 'polluted' by rocky debris may reflect current observations of other white dwarfs throughout the Milky Way.”
Dr Veras’s research is published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, under the title ‘The fates of solar system analogues with one additional distant planet’.
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