Smashing Planets
Look out! It's a Jerry Bruckheimer movie starring. . . little planet MERCURY?This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science. Producers of Hollywood disaster flicks should get to know Jacques Laskar and Mickael [Mee-Ka-L] Gastineau [GAST-in-new], from the Paris Observatory. They simulated the possibility of Mercury skidding catastrophically off its orbit, due to the strong gravitational pull of Jupiter. Why? It's only the biggest potential threat to our solar system. Sometimes the wayward planet plowed into Venus or the Sun. Yikes! But even when it DIDN'T crash or burn, its odd orbit caused an interplanetary pileup of celestial proportions. Mars often swerved and smashed into Venus, or got completely ejected from the solar system. Hasta la vista, Martian-istas! Usually, though, Mars just broadsided Earth. And when that didn't happen, Venus pulverized us. Over all, Big Blue got her butt kicked in one out of every four scenarios. But don't reach for the Pepto just yet, fellow Earthlings. The chance of Mercury ever leaving her lane is just one percent in the next FIVE BILLION YEARS. Probability of bad movie featuring War of the Planets? Much greater.
|