Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.

Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways

Could a passing star be on a collision course with our solar system and, eventually, Earth?

It’s difficult to know if such an outcome is likely. Recently, researchers have found the Milky Way likely won’t crash into its neighboring galaxy any time soon. Our blue marble is already slated to be eaten by our sun in several billion years, after it turns into a red giant and expands.

But researchers said in a recent study published in the journal Icarus that thousands of computer simulations indicate there’s a chance a passing field star – a star that appears in the same region of the sky as another object being studied – could cause more havoc than previously believed.

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“Our simulations indicate that isolated models of the solar system can underestimate the degree of our giant planets’ future secular orbital changes by over an order of magnitude. In addition, our planets and Pluto are significantly less stable than previously thought,” Nathan Kaib and Sean Raymond, a pair of astronomers, wrote in May. Kaib is from Iowa’s Planetary Science Institute and Raymond is from France’s University of Bourdeaux.

The study’s authors say passing stars are the most probable trigger for instability during the course of the next four billion years.

Could a passing star hit Earth some day? It’s difficult to know, but researchers say simulations show a chance (NASA)

The gravitational tug could cause instability to completely stable objects, including Pluto: formerly the ninth planet of our solar system. Over the course of five billion years, stars could transform Pluto from a completely stable object to one with a chaotic set of gravitational interactions that sets it off its orbit. While the odds of those changes occurring in that time frame from Pluto are approximately five percent, they are exponentially greater for Mercury.

The risk of instability for the solar system’s first planet would increase by between around 50 and 80 percent.

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“We also find an approximately 0.3 percent chance that Mars will be lost through collision or ejection and an approximately 0.2 percent probability that Earth will be involved in a planetary collision or ejected,” they wrote.

Kaib previously published work that suggested Earth’s orbit was altered by a passing star three million years ago.

“We looked at the typical, run-of-the-mill flybys,” Raymond told New Scientist. “These are the stars that really do pass by the sun all the time, cosmically speaking.”

Pluto, once our solar system’s ninth planet, could be impacted by one of these stars. So could Mercury and Mars (Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI)

Still, these simulations aside, Kaib told Science News that “none of these things are probable.”

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Although, the outlet notes, a 0.2 percent chance of collision with the Earth is much greater than previous research has found.

“It’s a little scary how vulnerable we may be to planetary chaos,” Renu Malhotra, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona who was not involved with the study, told Science News.

Chelsea could have the perfect bargaining chip to secure the signature of Jorrel Hato this summer. The Ajax star has been linked with a host of Premier League clubs in recent months, with Liverpool and Arsenal both said to be keen on the versatile defender. The Blues are also long-term admirers of the Netherlands international and he has previously been cited as one of their top defensive targets, with Enzo Maresca looking to inject further young talent into his squad.

Ajax are reportedly demanding £40million to part ways with their academy graduate this summer, but Chelsea appear to have been given the ideal opportunity to strike a cut-price deal for Hato thanks to their forgotten star, Armando Broja. According to The Sun, the 23-year-old is keen to leave the Blues over the coming months after an injury-ridden two seasons out on loan at Fulham and Everton respectively. The Albania international is hopeful that he can get his career back on track with a permanent exit this summer.

Broja is not short of suitors, with AC Milan, RB Leipzig and PSV already registering an interest in acquiring his services, though they aren’t the only sides in the race to secure his signature. Ajax are also said to have made contact with Chelsea to explore the conditions of a move for the striker, in what could be music to the ears of the higher powers at Stamford Bridge. With the race for Hato expected to heat up soon, the Blues will be well aware that a swap opportunity could very much be on the cards. Chelsea value Broja at £20million, which could therefore see them attempt to sign the defender for half of his current asking price.

Broja does not have a long-term future at Chelsea, with Liam Delap already joining the club and Maresca pushing for another No. 9, and thus using the powerful striker as a makeweight in negotiations for an in-demand defender could be too an opportunity to reject. Hato is capable of being deployed anywhere across the backline and his versatility could provide key cover next season, with Chelsea hoping to compete for silverware on all fronts – and it is hard to imagine that Broja is in any of their immediate or long-term plans anyway given how the Blues are currently conducting themselves in the market.

Bad news, earthlings. Computer models of the solar system’s future reveal a new risk facing us all. The gravitational tug of a passing star could cause another planet to smack into Earth. Or it might fling our planet into the sun. Or it could send Earth far away from the sun, where any inhabitants would freeze.

“None of these things are probable,” says Nathan Kaib with a laugh. This astronomer works at the Planetary Science Institute, based in Iowa. He teamed up for this research with astronomer Sean Raymond, at the University of Bordeaux in France.

Over the next 5 billion years, they calculate, Earth’s chance of an apocalypse caused by a passing star is only 0.2 percent. That figure is based on the number of stars passing near our solar system. That’s pretty slim odds of a drive-by star destroying or ejecting Earth within the lifespan of our sun.

Still, it’s a much greater risk than past studies had found. Those estimates hadn’t accounted for the long-term influence of passing stars.

Kaib and Raymond posted their findings to arXiv.org on May 7. Later this year, the journal Icarus will publish them, too.

Do you have a science question? We can help! Submit your question here, and we might answer it an upcoming issue of Science News Explores

The role of our planetary neighbors

If another star gets too close to us, Mercury will be key to the risk of Earth’s demise.

The innermost planet’s orbit around the sun is fairly oval-shaped. And astronomers have long known that Jupiter’s gravity can stretch its orbit out even more. The new models show that passing stars heighten this danger.

In those models, Mercury’s orbit becomes so elongated that the planet typically collides with the sun or Venus. The resulting chaos sometimes causes Venus or Mars to crash into Earth. Other times, Earth crashes into the sun. Or Venus and Mars can fling our world toward Jupiter. The giant planet’s gravity then ejects Earth from the solar system.

“It’s a little scary how vulnerable we may be to planetary chaos,” says Renu Malhotra. A planetary scientist, she works at the University of Arizona in Tucson.

Poor Pluto faces a 4 percent risk of getting booted from the solar system or smashing into a giant planet during the next 5 billion years, thanks to passing stars. Here, Pluto is seen in an image taken by the New Horizons spacecraft. NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute

Malhotra thinks past encounters with other stars have already influenced the solar system. For instance, one would expect the giant planets to have nearly circular paths around the sun. That’s because the planets formed from a disk of gas and dust with a nearly circular orbit. But today, three of the giant planets — Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus — have somewhat oval-shaped orbits. The gravity of passing stars may have tugged them onto these paths.

The most dangerous stars, Kaib says, are those that come closest — less than 100 times as far from the sun as Earth is. Stars that move slowly are also risky. Especially ones that move less than 10 kilometers (6 miles) per second relative to the sun. That cosmic snail’s pace extends how long their gravity will be able to tug on the planets.

However bad things look for Earth, though, be glad you don’t live on distant Pluto.

Without passing stars, Pluto was thought to have an even more stable orbit than Earth. “But once you allow stars to alter the solar system and push things around,” Kaib says, Pluto is in trouble. It can skirt by the giant planets. Then their gravity can kick it out of the solar system. Or Pluto can smash into one of them.

Over the next 5 billion years, the chance of such a fate befalling Pluto is about 4 percent. That’s 20 times greater than the risk facing Earth.

There is one upside to Pluto getting booted from the solar system, though. It might just end the long-standing debate over whether Pluto is really a planet.

Liverpool are poised to pay £8.55million to the parents of Florian Wirtz as they edge closer to securing the German international’s signature from Bayer Leverkusen. The 22-year-old is expected to ink a deal with the Reds until 2030, in what could end up being a British record transfer. The Merseyside club are reportedly shelling out £116million, including add-ons, making Wirtz their second highest earner, only behind Mohamed Salah. However, it’s not just Wirtz who stands to gain from this move. His career has been managed by his parents rather than an agency, and they have been instrumental in negotiating this deal. Hans and Karin Wirtz accompanied their son to England last month for talks and will receive a substantial cut from the deal.

According to Bild they will pocket £8.55m over the duration of their son’s contract with Liverpool. Wirtz is scheduled to undergo his medical on Friday after a brief holiday following his UEFA Nations League duties with Germany. The creative midfielder is set to join Liverpool‘s recent signing Jeremie Frimpong. It’s been a busy summer at Anfield with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Caoimhin Kelleher bidding farewell to the club. The acquisition of Wirtz will soon be followed by Milos Kerkez from Bournemouth. Negotiations between Liverpool and Bournemouth are ongoing, with the Cherries having already secured left-back Adrien Truffert from Rennes in a £14.5 million deal.

Arne Slot hinted at a proactive approach at the end of last season, stating: “We just want good players and ideally you sign them as soon as you can. “But it’s not always easy to sign good players, let alone to sign them early in the window. But this club doesn’t start working from today onwards. “There is so much hard work being done behind the scenes already this season to find out which targets we have and try to sign them. I have all the confidence that if we’ve addressed the right player that we try to sign that player.”

It won’t be the Sun’s fiery death that seals Earth’s fate — at least, not necessarily. A new astronomical study suggests a far more chaotic possibility: our planet could be hurled into the void of interstellar space by the passing of a rogue star. While the timeline spans billions of years, the implications are immediate.

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Researchers have modeled how these cosmic flybys disrupt planetary orbits, and the results suggest the solar system’s grip on its planets may be weaker than once believed.

For decades, scientists treated the solar system as a mostly self-contained unit, its planets orbiting in a predictable ballet. But the Milky Way is a crowded stage. Stars occasionally drift close — sometimes too close — and when they do, the gravitational choreography can spiral into chaos.

A new study published in Icarus dives into that danger zone, running 2,000 simulations using NASA’s Horizons System, a precision orbital tracker. The results show that near-passing stars could slash the solar system’s long-term stability by about 50%. Some planets weather these encounters better than others.

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Mercury, for instance, is already the wild card of the inner planets. Its orbit grows more eccentric over time, increasing the chance it could crash into Venus or fall into the Sun. With a rogue star in the mix, Mercury is often the first to go. Mars and Pluto also show significant vulnerability — Pluto has nearly a 4% chance of being ejected entirely.

Earth fares better in isolation, but the danger rises if another destabilised planet knocks it off course. The simulations show a disturbing trend: once a flyby shakes the solar system, the resulting chaos can drag even relatively stable orbits into disarray.

The researchers distinguish two forms of orbital instability — internal and external. Internal chaos rarely leads to large-scale ejections. But when stars wander too close, “the nature of stellar-driven instabilities is more violent,” often sending multiple planets adrift. These events, according to the study, occur in nearly half of the simulated scenarios involving stellar intruders.

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Earth’s risk from these encounters is hundreds of times higher than previously estimated. It’s a stark reminder that our planet’s future may not hinge on the Sun’s lifecycle — but rather on a stranger passing through.