What if just 1 planet in our solar system suddenly disappeared?
Hi! Welcome to insane curiosity. Have you ever noticed how beautiful our solar
system is? Planets, asteroids, moons, everything seems
to be in perfect harmony. Physical laws of nature hold together both
rocky and gaseous planets, whether they are small or big.
Philosophers and scientists of all eras noticed this, as well, but it was only with Newton
that we understood what was holding everything so perfectly together.
It was gravity.
As of today, we know that gravity is responsible for the amazing dance of planets in space.
It is what gives them their spherical shape.
However, have you ever wondered what would happen if one of the planets suddenly disappeared?
What would happen to this ‘perfect harmony’ ?
If only one of the planets disappeared, the loss of gravity might manifest itself with
some strange effects. For example, as we will see later in this video if Jupiter disappeared,
Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars would be in serious danger.
=======================================
First of all, every planet is different. If there's one thing that we learned (and
we are still learning, with new studies on exoplanets) about planets is that... there
are plenty of them, and they have different sizes, different compositions, different shapes,
and mass distribution, and they also have a different axis of rotation and different
angular velocities!
In general, the gravitational field a planet produces is mostly determined by its mass.
According to Newton and its universal law of gravitation, every object is attracted
to each other, and the pull of this force is greater, the greater the mass of the objects
in play.
Basically, the disappearance of a small planet, for example, won't affect the behavior of
the other planets so much. In this video, we will see what would happen to Earth if
the other planets suddenly disappeared, and we will see that, for small planets like Venus
or Neptune, nothing strange will happen. But keep in mind that these effects don't hold
forever. Planetary systems are in general quite unstable. This, in physical terms, means
that even a slight change in their orbits could lead, on timescales of millions, or
billions of years, to the disappearance of the system as a whole.
Let's throw Mercury away first. Get out!
Mercury is the first and smallest of all the planets in our solar system. It is closest
to the Sun and its gravity is heavily influenced by the Sun because the Sun is huge!
As you might already know, the Sun is the most massive body in the solar system! It
accounts for over 99.8 % of the solar system mass!
This said, Mercury’s disappearance, on short timescales, would cause negligible changes
to the solar system’s order. The small size of the planet and its proximity to the Sun
causes it to be merely a speck in the solar system.
How many times did you happen to watch the sky at night, and see a bright, not sparkling
needle, on the horizon? That was probably Venus.
Venus can appear as a brilliant evening star. Besides the sun and moon, Venus is
the brightest object visible in Earth's sky. Because it is closer to the sun than Earth,
Venus never strays far from the sun in its apparent position and is seen during the
year as either a bright morning or evening star.
Let's try to kick Venus out of the system. What would happen?
Well, the loss of Venus would not have many cosmological effects, but it would certainly
hurt the night sky, as we would lose our “morning star”.
The sky would be much less bright, and the world less romantic.
So the Earth would still be safe if we got rid of Mercury or Venus.
Will things change if Mars suddenly disappeared? Well, first of all, it would be a pity for
us, humans, because we are planning to live there, one day.
Mars is the most explored planet in the solar system: more than 56 exploratory missions
were sent to study the red planet in great detail. If Mars vanishes, basically nothing
happens to Earth's orbit, but on long timescales, you would notice a decrease in the number
of asteroids coming towards Earth. This is because Mars acts as a slingshot,
accelerating some of the objects in the Asteroid belt towards Earth. It's a paradox, but we
would be safer if Mars didn't exist.
Isn't it amazing? Let's see how this mechanism works.
Shortly, asteroids are firmly held by Jupiter’s huge gravity, but sometimes, due to an effect
called gravity resonance, they get pushed out of orbit. The Sun, exerting its huge gravity
on this anomaly, pulls the asteroid towards it. Here, Mars’ gravity comes into play.
Mars acts as a slingshot and hurtles the asteroids towards Earth. Even though these asteroids
may fly by with several million miles to spare, Mars does increase the probability of Earth-bound
asteroids.
Let's move outwards and reach Jupiter! Jupiter is the big brother of the Solar system, it
is the second more massive body and it is really important for life as we know it, here
on Earth. What Jupiter does is protect us from space
bullies. Over the past billion years, Jupiter acted
as a shield for Earth and the rocky planets of the Solar System, because it has a huge
gravitational field. It actually is so vast and strong that it can derail the asteroids
bound for Earth and cast them out of the solar system!
In this animation, you can appreciate how the comet Shoemaker-Levy literally fell into
Jupiter in 1994.
In fact, long-range comets frequently crash into it, leaving some impressive scars.
Earlier on this channel, we made a video about this topic. Why don't you check it out?
Also, if Jupiter disappears and its moons stay then there is a possibility that some
of the moons may hit other celestial bodies in our solar system and others may eventually
start orbiting the sun. Moreover, our very purpose in establishing
colonies on Mars was to save the human race from extinction. But with Jupiter gone, Mars
won't be safe either. So our mission to save mankind will have to take great interstellar
leaps.
And, cherry on the top, although this is still not confirmed, Jupiter's disappearance could
impact our climate a little bit.
So please, guys, don't let Jupiter disappear!
Saturn is the sixth planet of the solar system and the second largest member. Somebody calls
it “the lord of the rings”, due to its beautiful set of rings, which makes it look
quite majestic. Look at it as seen from the Cassini spacecraft!
Saturn also has 62 moons, one of which is Titan, with a size greater than Mercury!
Titan is the largest moon of Saturn and the second-largest natural satellite in
the Solar System. It is the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere, and is the only
known object in space other than Earth on which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface
liquid has been found
Saturn’s disappearance would affect the orbits of Jupiter and Uranus by some degree,
due to its sheer size and mass, but given its distance from the inner ring of planets,
it’s tough to imagine that Saturn would have a similar impact on the smaller inner
planets.
Well, up to this point, it seems only Jupiter could really have some major impact on the
destiny of Earth. But what about the two planets left, Uranus and Neptune?
Hey, before getting to Uranus and Neptune, why don't you subscribe and press the bell
notification? In this way, you won't miss any of our videos!
Well, Uranus is big, but it is so distant! As we know, the universal law of gravitation
tells us that the gravitational pull is inversely proportional to the distance of the objects
taken into consideration. Since Uranus is too far away, the force acting on the other
planets is negligible! But of course, it definitely affects the outer
ring of the solar system, including the Kuiper Belt.
But let's make it funnier. Let's suppose we put Uranus next to our planet,
everything else being unchanged. In this case, the tides would be ripped off
our planet, and the gravitational pull of a planet so massive would tear our planet
apart. We would all die.
So, if someone ever asked you to choose between making Uranus disappear or placing it close
to Earth, you'd better go for the first option!
Nothing strange will happen if Neptune disappeared, but, as we were saying earlier, this is only
valid on short timescales. As an example, let's see what would happen to the solar system
in the long run if there was a 0.1% change in Neptune's orbit.
This would be enough for the planets to collide. Astrophysicists explained that, if Neptune's
orbit suddenly underwent this small change, a neighboring star that gets too close to
our solar system could throw it into chaos. This is strongly supported by simulations.
According to them, a passing star would only have to shift Neptune's position by three
times the distance between Earth and the Sun to confuse planets.
Simulations are a really important tool for astrophysicists!
Numerical simulations are used to investigate a variety of astrophysical phenomena, including
to investigate the distribution of dark matter on large and small scales, to understand X-ray
clusters and their properties, to perform high-resolution simulations of the interstellar
medium, and the formation and evolution of galaxies, to model the disruption of Milky
Way satellites, to investigate how planets form and how their atmospheres evolve under
extreme conditions, to determine how the first stars in the universe formed, to simulate
the electrodynamics of neutron stars. Last but not least, the outcome of a simulation
should always be able to reproduce what we observe in the universe! A simulation that
can't reproduce the observations is probably based on bad physics. If that happens, it
might be time to revise out theories.
So, what we learned today is that, surprisingly enough, the removal of a planet—with the
exception of Jupiter —would not change the world around us as drastically as you may
imagine. The changes brought about by their departure would be minuscule in the immediate
moment, but over time, the changes might gradually increase. A million years down the line, it’s
hard to say how those changes would interact and evolve.
So, stay calm and chill! The universe and our solar system are safer than you think!
Perhaps the most dangerous thing in the solar system is...the human presence! Let's be kind
to our planet, and everything will be just fine.
This video ends here! What do you think about it? Let us know in the comment below and be
sure to watch our other videos about solar system through the youtube endscreens and
in the description below!