Title: What if Mars hits the Earth?
We all know how planets in the solar system all revolve around the Sun, and they have been doing
so - and they will keep doing so - for a long time. When ancient astronomers first began to
understand the motion of planets as seen from Earth, they started believing in some kind of
harmony, some kind of perfect balanced dance among the planets, known as the “Harmony of
the spheres”. For example, Copernicus thought the planets move in circular orbits around the Sun.
But belief in the harmony of the spheres assumed a decisive role in the cosmology of Johannes Kepler.
Kepler goes beyond Copernicus' static model of circular spheres to hypothesize a dynamic one.
He transforms into ellipses the orbits traversed by the planets at variable speeds. He attributes
to each planet not a single sound, but an interval in which the lowest note corresponds
to minimum velocity, the highest to the maximum. This perfect equilibrium, this harmony of the
spheres seems immutable. If you could leave the Solar System and come back in 1 million
years or so, you would not expect it to have changed a lot. So it’s very unlikely something
catastrophic happens, but what if it did? What if, for example, Mars hits the Earth?
Follow Insane Curiosity and join me on this journey as I explore this terrifying yet
interesting possibility. I will guide you through the theories and simulations that scientists have
done to answer this question. Discover what could happen and how, and understand the
dangers of such an event. Also, consider how we can protect the planet from such devastation.
======= The thought of Mars and Earth bumping into
each other may seem completely impossible at first simply because these planets are on two different
orbits around the Sun. However, according to the video’s host Gabe Perez-Giz, Earth and Mars can
also be affected by the gravitational forces exerted by other planets in the Solar System.
Now those extra tugs are tiny. But if everything lines up just right, then over
billions of years they could have a sizable cumulative effect and distort those orbits.
In order to understand what would happen and how, scientists need to run a bunch of simulations,
taking into account a lot of physics, and considering certain caveats.
In one of the simulations, they decided to perturb just a little the Harmony of the spheres.
What they did was to move Mercury away by just one meter. Then, they got up from their chairs
and went to make some coffee. When they came back, the simulations over billions of years
clearly showed that, in this scenario, the orbits of the other planets stretched out due
to Mercury’s new position. This caused Earth’s orbit around the Sun, Venus, and Mars to expand.
The scientists then discovered that Earth’s new trajectory would place it in a direct collision
course with Mars in four billion years. This was amazing, and scary at the same time. Here’s why.
========== If Mars hits the Earth,
the consequences would be devastating. The impact would cause massive damage on an unprecedented
scale. The force of the collision would be tremendous, creating massive earthquakes
and tsunamis in all parts of the world, as well as earthquakes and volcanic activity.
These disasters could cause a global catastrophe, as communities and cities are destroyed by violent
volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, and earthquakes. The Earth would be engulfed in a firestorm of gas,
dust, and debris that would cause temperatures to rise significantly,
leading to a global climate shift and extreme weather patterns.
The amount of energy released by the impact would be significant,
killing thousands and leaving millions homeless. In the aftermath, the shockwave and subsequent
airwaves of energy would spread in all directions, leading to a global famine as crops, livestock,
and other resources are destroyed. The Earth’s infrastructure and vegetation would be ruined.
The effects of such an event would also have a long-term effect on the future of humanity as
we know it. It would be difficult to rebuild and might take generations before the planet returns
to a state of normalcy. In addition, the radiation and increased temperatures would cause ecological
damage and might even lead to the extinction of some species due to the massive destruction.
In the aftermath of the collision, if you did manage to get away in a spaceship,
you’d see the massive remnants of both planets catapulted into different orbits. Some of them
would hit other planets, while others would be fired out of the Solar System entirely.
Whatever was left would form a new asteroid belt encircling the Sun. Nothing would tell there was
once intelligent life on planet Earth. And you, and I, and all the people you know would be gone
forever. Perhaps no intelligent alien life would ever know we’ve been presence in the cosmos at
some point in the history of the universe. =======
But what’s really interesting is that astrophysicists are almost
sure a similar impact took place in the far past.
And it created the moon, our beautiful satellite. The so-called giant impact theory proposes that
the Moon formed during a collision between the Earth and another small planet, about the size
of Mars. The debris from this impact collected in an orbit around Earth to form the Moon.
Some evidence supports this theory. For instance, when the rock sample
from the Apollo mission came back, they showed that the Earth and the Moon have some
remarkable chemical and isotopic similarities, suggesting that they have a linked history.
The scenario takes into consideration the proto-Earth and a roughly
Mars-sized planet, called Theia. The giant-impact model suggests that
at some point in Earth's very early history, these two bodies collided.
During this massive collision, nearly all of Earth and Theia melted and reformed as one body,
with a small part of the new mass spinning off to become the Moon as we know it.
Scientists have experimented with modeling the impact, changing the size of Theia to test what
happens at different sizes and impact angles, and trying to get the nearest possible match.
Earth and Theia were made of almost exactly the same materials,
to begin with, as they were within the same neighborhood as the solar system was forming.
If the two bodies had come from the same place and were made of similar stuff, to begin with, this
would also explain the similar composition of the two, as suggested by the Apollo mission samples.
In this new video from Nasa, we can appreciate the most detailed simulation ever made to
recreate the initial and post-impact conditions of the Giant impact scenario.
This simulation shows the Moon may have formed in a matter of hours when material from the
Earth and a Mars sized-body was launched directly into orbit after the impact.
The simulations used in this research are some of the most detailed of their kind, operating
at the highest resolution of any simulation run to study the Moon’s origins or other giant impacts.
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========== In order to prevent the frightening scenario
of Mars hitting the Earth, it is important to maintain the perfect balance of planets around
the sun. If all planets are in perfect alignment and far enough apart, the risk of an impact is
eliminated. This balance must be kept so that the solar system can function harmoniously,
with every planet moving in a predictable fashion and each maintaining its orbit as it should.
Keeping the planets in a state of perfect equilibrium is essential for the survival of
life on Earth and for the health of the solar system. With the perfect balance of planets,
the solar system will remain stable and secure, and the future of life on Earth will be secure.
The only problem with this is that…gravitational
forces are highly sensitive to changes, even if small.
We’ve already seen it in the case of Mercury, but engineers and dynamicists know it very well, too.
In principle, if we know the state of a system in the present, we can predict what it was like
in the past, and how it will behave in the future. But this is only in principle because
in practice we use computers and run some simulations. And computers are not perfect.
Every computation you do on a computer will be characterized by some error. The smallest the
better, of course, but our computations will never be perfect, and in the long run – for example,
over billions of years – a small error could propagate and give different results!
If Mercury was only moved by a fraction of a meter, this would end up in a catastrophic
event over a timescale of billions of years! The same thing happens to artificial satellites around
the Earth. That’s why engineers need correction maneuvers to keep them in the desired orbits
around the Earth or its Lagrangian points. There are algorithms for that, and they are really hard
to implement: there’s a lot of research going on to ensure the stability of these orbits.
=========
In conclusion, the possibility of a collision between Earth and Mars is a frightening reality,
but it is essential that the harmony of the spheres is maintained by keeping the planets in
a state of perfect equilibrium in order to avoid this catastrophe. Humanity must also protect our
planet by doing all that we can to maintain the perfect balance of planets in our solar system.
This will help to ensure the future of life on Earth and the stability of our solar system.