Our planet is doomed, we already know that. But Earth’s natural destruction isn’t slated for a few billion years at the earliest. However, now experts raise the question: what are the chances of a rogue star entering our solar system and destroying everything way ahead of schedule?
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00:00 [Music]
00:03 Our planet is doomed. We already know that. But Earth's natural destruction
00:07 isn't slated for a few billion years at the earliest.
00:10 However, now experts raise the question, what are the chances of a rogue star
00:14 entering our solar system and destroying everything way ahead of
00:18 schedule? It might sound far-fetched, but a new study posits that it's possible
00:22 and if a rogue star comes too close, things could get dicey in a hurry.
00:25 Rogue stars often occur in systems that interact with black holes,
00:29 where a sudden burst of energy from the black hole literally sends the star
00:32 careening out into the cosmos. And experts believe
00:35 that in the next billion years, there's a one percent chance a rogue star will
00:39 enter our solar system. So what will happen if that does occur?
00:42 The study outlines that if the rogue star whizzes past us at around 100
00:46 astronomical units, or 100 times the distance of the Earth to the Sun,
00:50 there's actually a 95 percent probability of survival. Still, their
00:53 calculations reveal there's a 2.54 percent chance of Mercury getting thrown
00:57 off orbit and gobbled by the Sun, and a 0.81 percent chance it might collide
01:01 with another planet. Meanwhile, there's a 1.21 percent chance
01:05 that Mars will end up colliding with our central star,
01:07 and a 0.24 percent chance that same thing might happen
01:11 to Earth.