Whazzup? My name’s Zid, and I’m from a planet in a place you call the Andromeda Galaxy.
I’m in high school, and I have this assignment to find out what will happen to your solar
system’s “perfect harmony” if it loses a planet! So, I poof one of yours away with
this ray blaster and track any changes. Don’t worry, I’ll put them back! Sort of. So,
let’s give it a shot!
I’ll start with the planet closest to the Sun – Mercury, right? Oh, it’s so small,
I nearly missed it! Here we go! Ok, with Mercury gone, how’s Earth looking? Hmm, no changes
in the solar system. I saw that coming. It’s all about gravity. Every object that has some
mass attracts other objects because of its gravitational force. The larger the mass,
the greater the force it has. Mercury is the smallest planet in the solar system, so it’s
not too massive in space terms. The second important factor is the distance between the
objects. At 50 million miles away, Mercury is no doubt far from Earth, so the gravitational
force between the two of them isn’t that strong. Ok, let’s put Mercury back and move
on to…
Venus! It’s the hottest planet in yourc solar system. One day here is almost 117 Earth
days. I’ll try the blue button this time – oh, did you see that? It just froze and
broke into pieces! And … again, nothing really changed that much. Well, except you,
Earthling, just lost the 2nd brightest object to light up the night sky…2nd to the Moon,
of course. I suppose that’s why they call Venus the Evening Star! Looks like it got
way darker after sunset than it used to be. Alright, I’ll reassemble Venus now, and
head to your home planet! Mwahaha!
Earth – the one floating rock in the system that’s in that precious “Habitable Zone”
– the perfect distance from your star to sustain life. Hey, I was just kidding! I’m
obviously not going to poof Earth away, so let’s head to the Red Planet!
Mars – I know humans are planning to send a mission there. Would you personally want
to go? Tell me in the comments below! Let’s see what will happen when I spin the Red Planet
so fast that it shoots out of the solar system! Bye, Mars! And no significant changes again.
This might be good for Earth in a way. There’s a massive asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Asteroids, as you know, aren’t Earth’s best friends. Jupiter usually holds them together
with its strong gravity, but from time to time, they break free and start moving toward
the Sun. No surprise really, since its gravitational pull is impressive. Mars also has gravity
to boast and acts somewhat like a slingshot that speeds up asteroids in the direction
of Earth. So, no Mars – no slingshot, and the chances of the Blue Planet getting hit
by an asteroid go down!
Finally, the moment I’ve been waiting for! Time to experiment with the largest planet
in your solar system – Jupiter! It weighs 3 times more than all its neighboring planets
combined! Hmm, how am I going to get this giant out of the system? I know! I’ll use
the Shrink Ray and make it 2 billion times smaller first. Now I can just throw it like
a baseball! …
Uh-oh, I think I’ve made a huge mistake! With its massive gravitational force, Jupiter
has protected Earth from asteroids and other space debris over the past 4½ billion years!
Now the sun’s gravitational pull is sending all that stuff toward the inner planets, and
that includes Earth! There will also be some small changes in the orbits of other planets,
but that would be some thousands of years later. For now, I gotta figure out a way to
get Jupiter back before the Earth is doomed! Maybe this button? No, ok, this one? I’ll
just push all of them…Ah, brace for impact!!! …
Phew! Whatever I did, it worked! The Giant is now resting peacefully back in its place,
and Earth is saved! Sorry about that – must’ve given you a real scare! I’ll try to be more
careful with the rest of the Gas Giants…
It’s time for Saturn. You can’t mistake it for any other planet thanks to those gorgeous
rings! Scientists say they’ll disappear one day as Saturn’s immense gravity pulls
them down in an icy rain. But that won’t be until 300 million years from now, so no
worries. Hmm, I guess I’ll have to push the red button for this one. Bam, and it’s
gone! Such a massive planet, the 2nd largest in the solar system, can’t be gone with
no consequences. Look at Jupiter and Uranus! Their orbits have slightly shifted. Other
than that, I don’t see any changes to the other planets. Saturn is just too far to influence
them. That’s good! Wouldn’t want another close call like what happened when I took
Jupiter away!
Uranus is massive as well, the 3rd largest planet in the solar system. I’ll try this
super powerful space lasso to move it out of the way – got it. Now, I’ll just throw
it out of the system. And … nothing so far. Looks like it’s the same story as it was
with Saturn – Uranus is so far away from the inner four planets that its disappearance
has no effect on them whatsoever. But I can see that it did mess things up a bit among
the outer planets.
Alas, we’ve come to the last planet, unless you’re on Team Pluto! Sorry, but I’m gonna
go with NASA on its status and exclude it from today’s experiment on your happy neighborhood
of planets! Anyway, it’s Neptune's turn! Beyond it, you’ve got the Kuiper Belt. It’s
a donut-shaped region of icy objects and a ton of dwarf planets like Pluto. Neptune is
so close to the outer edge of the solar system that I’ll just kick it out. Whoa, look at
the Kuiper Belt – it’s going crazy! Without Neptune’s gravitational pull keeping things
stable, orbits are crossing, and celestial bodies are crashing into each other! Check
it out – Pluto’s orbit is misshapen now too! Neptune pretty much controls it, as well.
But it’s too far away from Earth to affect it in any way. I wouldn’t want anything
to happen to little Pluto, so let’s put the 8th planet back where it belongs!
But I’m not ready to finish the experiment just yet! I need to find something that would
really affect life on Earth. The Sun is the obvious answer, but the mess and chaos from
its disappearance would be too massive and irreversible, so I’ll leave it where it
is.
What about the Moon, though? I’ve always had this secret dream to turn it into Swiss
cheese and bite off a piece. It’s time! Yum! …Oh, my! What just happened to the
Earth’s axis? It’s so tilted, even more than it was before! The weather down there
has gone wild too – there are no more seasons at all, and new ice ages are on their way!
The ocean tides have become much lower than they used to be. And is the planet starting
to spin faster? Yep, the day now lasts only 6 to 12 hours because there’s no more pull
of the moon to slow down the Earth’s rotation. There are no more lunar or solar eclipses
to watch. And the nights are so dark with nothing but billions of stars and Venus (which
together are still way dimmer than the Moon) to light the sky up. None of this sounds good
for life on Earth, so I’ll de-cheesify your Moon and put it back where it was!
It looks like out of all the planets in your sun’s complex system, only Jupiter’s disappearance
would be a major problem for Earth. So I guess it’s true what they say: the solar system
really is a delicate and harmonious balance!
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