'A 4 billion-year twist': Mysterious interstellar invader vhanged our Solar System’s course
Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
Credit: NASA/JPL
Cosmic Visitor
A massive planetary object may have passed through our solar system 4 billion years ago.
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Orbital Mystery
None of the eight planets have perfectly circular orbits or lie on the same orbital plane.
Study Lead
Renu Malhotra, planetary scientist at the University of Arizona, co-authored the study.
Credit: University of Arizona
Simulated Flybys
Researchers conducted 50,000 simulations to explore how a visitor altered planetary paths.
Jupiter-Sized
The interloper ranged from two to 50 times Jupiter’s mass, possibly a substellar body.
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Close Pass
Simulations revealed some objects came as close as 1.69 AU from the sun, near Mars' orbit.
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Orbital Tweaks
In 1% of cases, flybys changed outer planets’ orbits to match their current trajectories.
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Brown Dwarfs
Substellar bodies like brown dwarfs are abundant, suggesting such flybys might be common.
Inner Impact
Additional simulations showed the visitor affected both outer and terrestrial planets.
Published Findings
The study was shared in the arXiv preprint database in December, sparking fresh theories.