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+--- Thread: Research The solar system has a new life expectancy, and it’s a billion times shorter (/thread-21466.html)
The solar system has a new life expectancy, and it’s a billion times shorter - C C - Oct 1, 2026
https://aasnova.org/2026/09/30/the-solar-system-has-a-new-life-expectancy-and-its-a-billion-times-shorter/
EXCERPTS: Isaac Newton suspected that the gravitational dance between the Sun and Jupiter would eventually destabilize the solar system, but modern computational research has shown that its long-term stability is, statistically, pretty secure. However, new simulations with more realistic solar mass-loss conditions make a strong case for the disassembly of the outer solar system — and on timescales much shorter than previously thought.
Several studies have investigated what will happen to the orbits of planets in our solar system as the Sun sheds its mass during its transition to a white dwarf. [...] However, all of these studies modeled solar mass loss as a smooth function, so the dismantling of the solar system was left up to external forcings. In reality, stars on the red giant branch undergo mass ejections that are random in time and direction, corresponding to velocity “kicks” that can alter the dynamics of the planets.
[...] This new discovery reduces the life expectancy of the solar system from one billion billion years to a meager one billion years after white dwarf formation... (MORE - missing details)