Planet ejected from solar system

What happened if a giant planet was ejected from the Solar System?

By running the simulations with an additional giant planet with mass similar to that of Uranus or Neptune, things suddenly fell in place. One planet was ejected from the solar system by Jupiter, leaving four giant planets behind, and Jupiter jumped, leaving the terrestrial planets undisturbed.

Did Jupiter eject another planet from the Solar System?

Image credit: SwRI. It’s like something out of an interplanetary chess game. Or maybe our solar system playground during recess. Astrophysicists at the University of Toronto have found that a close encounter with Jupiter about four billion years ago may have resulted in another planet’s ejection from the solar system altogether.

Was a fifth gas giant ejected from our Solar System?

A fifth gas giant ejected from our solar system? Our solar system has eight official planets – four gas giant worlds like Jupiter and four small rocky worlds like Earth. But until the solar system was 600 million years old, it might have had a fifth gas giant planet.

Did Jupiter push a giant planet out of the Solar System?

Simulations indicate that Jupiter might have pushed a smaller gas giant planet out of the solar system early in its history. Just as an expert chess player sacrifices a piece to protect the queen, the solar system may have given up a giant planet and spared Earth.

Could Jupiter eject the fifth giant planet?

Using computer models, they investigated the likelihood of the moons having the same orbit as they do today if they'd been involved in a mass planetary ejection 4 billion years ago. "Ultimately, we found that Jupiter is capable of ejecting the fifth giant planet while retaining a moon with the orbit of Callisto," said Cloutie r.

How many planets are ejected?

Five initial planets are shown by red circles, small bodies are in green. After the fifth planet is ejected, the remaining four planets stabilize after a while, and looks like the outer solar system in the end, with giant planets at 5, 10, 20 and 30 astronomical units. Click image to view animation. Image Credit: Southwest Research Institute