Huge gravity of these dense stars, which have burned all their own fuel, rips apart smaller planetary bodies

Huge gravity of these dense stars, which have burned all their own fuel, rips apart smaller planetary bodies

It’s the end of the world, not quite as we know it.

Scientists from the University of Warwick and other universities have studied the impact white dwarfs – end-of-state stars that have burned all their fuel – have on planetary systems such as our own solar system.

When asteroids, moons and planets get close to white dwarfs, their huge gravity rips these small planetary bodies into smaller and smaller pieces, which continue to collide, eventually grinding them into dust.

While the researchers said Earth would probably be swallowed by our host star, the sun, before it becomes a white dwarf, the rest of our solar system, including asteroids between Mars and Jupiter, as well as moons of Jupiter, ultimately may be shredded by the sun in a white star form.

  • sylver_dragon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    7 months ago

    I was thinking that, too, but prior to the Sun becoming a white dwarf, the Sun is predicted to expand and swallow Earth (and Venus and Mercury), so the Sun’s mass will increase.

    A quick look has the mass of Mercury, Venus and Earth at close to 2 times the mass of Earth by itself. The Sun is around 330,000 times the mass of Earth. Soaking up all the inner planets means a change of less than 1/10th of 1% to the mass of the Sun. It’s not going to have an appreciable effect on it’s gravitational pull. The Sun already holds the vast majority of the mass of the solar system. With Jupiter holding most of the rest.

    Contrary to the headline, I suspect the only way the solar system will be destroyed by a white dwarf will be if one ends up whipping through our solar system. That would make for a very bad day.