Our solar system may be headed for total chaos in 40-million years, according to new research by Jacques Laskar of the Observatoire in France. Jacques ran 1001 computer simulations of the solar system, each with slightly different starting positions for our planets, and in 1 to 2% of the situations, all hell broke loose.
"Once Mercury's eccentricity gets up above about 0.6, then it's getting close to crossing Venus's orbit," Laughlin told New Scientist. "Once you get orbit crossings, you sort of transition from the orderly yet chaotic configuration that the solar system is in currently to a much more violently chaotic situation. Then all bets are off – a lot of bad things can happen."
Mercury and Mars tend to get thrown around the most when the solar system destabilises, because at 6 and 11% of Earth's mass, respectively, they are relatively easy to move. It is harder to budge Venus, on the other hand, because it has 82% of Earth's mass.
In one of Batygin and Laughlin's simulations, Mercury was thrown into the Sun 1.3 billion years from now. In another, Mars was flung out of the solar system after 820 million years, then 40 million years later Mercury and Venus collided.
Hopefully, humanity will have long-since left our cradle by the time this happens, no doubt running around the universe in an attempt to escape the Cylons.
We're all aware of the Moon's influence on Earth, from high-tides to werewolves, but new research has revealed that Earth also freaks out the Moon.
From NASA:
"Earth's magnetotail extends well beyond the orbit of the Moon and, once a month, the Moon orbits through it," says Tim Stubbs, a University of Maryland scientist working at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "This can have consequences ranging from lunar 'dust storms' to electrostatic discharges."
What's this mean for lunar explorers?
Walking across the dusty charged-up lunar terrain, astronauts may find themselves crackling with electricity like a sock pulled out of a hot dryer. Touching another astronaut, a doorknob, a piece of sensitive electronics—any of these simple actions could produce an unwelcome zap. "Proper grounding is strongly recommended," advises Stubbs.
The ground, meanwhile, may leap into the sky. There is compelling evidence (see, e.g., the Surveyor 7 image below) that fine particles of moondust, when sufficiently charged-up, actually float above the lunar surface. This could create a temporary nighttime atmosphere of dust ready to blacken spacesuits, clog machinery, scratch faceplates (moondust is very abrasive) and generally make life difficult for astronauts.
Stranger still, moondust might gather itself into a sort of diaphanous wind. Drawn by differences in global charge accumulation, floating dust would naturally fly from the strongly-negative nightside to the weakly-negative dayside. This "dust storm" effect would be strongest at the Moon's terminator, the dividing line between day and night.
Exploring the moon was so simple when we didn't know anything.
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has released two small videos that depict the Earth rising and setting from the perspective of the moon. The images were recorded by Kaguya, which arrived at the moon last October and has since deployed two mini-satellites and five instrument antennae.
The planet Venus has long mystified astronomers, but John Huw Davies, geodynamicist at Cardiff University, has developed a new theory that may explain its origins and current state of being. Simply put, Venus may have been created by a momumental collision between two proto-planets:
"A mega-collision between two bodies of roughly equal size could have provided the energy necessary to rip water, which is made of two hydrogen and one oxygen, into pieces. The hydrogen would escape into space while oxygen would bond with iron and sink to the planet's core."
