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Our Solar System Is Terminally Unstable and Will Be Completely Destroyed, Study Finds (www.404media.co)

submitted 1 week ago by heliotrope@slrpnk.net to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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[–] FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 66 points 1 week ago (3 children)

FTA:

The estimated lifespan of the outer solar system has been downgraded from 100 billion years to just a few billion years, according to a study that probed “terminal instability” during the Sun’s death.

[–] Arcanepotato@crazypeople.online 29 points 1 week ago

FTA:

“Newton’s envisioned instability is real after all,” the team. “He was mistaken only about the perpetrator.”

The news isn't that the solar system will eventually collapse (the concept of entropy isn't new) but that the mass loss is not predictable and smooth and the impact of the irregular mass loss fucks with their orbit:

The recently measured white dwarf recoil demands asymmetric mass loss that is most readily attributed to discrete, independently directed ejections that impulsively perturb stellar motion.

[–] bampop@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

People are acting like it's not a problem, but if we have just one more downgrade of that magnitude, we'll be in big trouble

[–] baines@lemmy.cafe 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

is that going to take longer than 30 years?

[–] bampop@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Nope. One more downgrade like that and the collapse of the solar system will be 88 billion years in the past. It'll collapse before it even formed, and none of this mess will have happened in the first place. Come to think of it, that doesn't sound so bad. Since it precedes the big bang, that might help with damage limitation.

[–] madmantis24@lemmy.wtf 4 points 1 week ago

I can get behind Accelerationism if it means we cause an integer overflow

[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago

Fuck. We have a lot less time than we thought.