- A recent study published in the journal Icarus indicates that passing field stars could cause more instability in our solar system than previously believed.
- Astronomers Nathan Kaib and Sean Raymond conducted thousands of computer simulations, identifying passing stars as the most probable trigger for future orbital changes over the next four billion years.
- The research suggests that the risk of instability for Jupiter could increase by 50 to 80 percent due to these gravitational interactions.
- The study also found an approximate 0.3 percent chance that Mars could be lost through collision or ejection, and a 0.2 percent probability of Earth being involved in a planetary collision or ejected.
- Despite these findings, which show a higher risk for Earth than previous research, one of the study's authors, Nathan Kaib, stated that these extreme outcomes are still not probable.
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