--- title: "Scientists Predict That The Solar System Could Collapse If a Star Flew Too Close" description: "After running nearly 3,000 simulations, scientists found that a minor change in Neptune's orbit caused by a passing star could disrupt our system's orbits." date: "2022-07-07" modified: "2022-07-07" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/solar-system-collapse-star-too-close" categories: - "Energy" - "Off-World" - "Renewable Energy" - "Science & Energy" - "Solar Power" - "Space" tags: - "solar system" - "stars" - "the digest" --- # Scientists Predict That The Solar System Could Collapse If a Star Flew Too Close ![After running nearly 3,000 simulations, scientists found that a minor change in Neptune's orbit caused by a passing star could disrupt our system's orbits.]() *\Image: NASA/Futurism\* ## Cosmic Collapse Have you ever indulged the depths of your intrusive thoughts and wondered how the universe is going to smash and chew up our little planet over billions of years? Well, that’s more or less what scientists Garett Brown and Hanno Rein at the University of Toronto have done for [their recent study]() on what would happen if a neighboring star flew just a little too close to our solar system. While they're not expecting a neighboring star to come cruising through the middle of our system, they looked at the potentially devastating effects of minor shifts in the orbits of the solar system's planets, triggered by a star getting a little too close to comfort — some billions of miles away. ## Solar Simulations Brown and Rein ran nearly 3,000 simulations with varying degrees of perturbation caused by a possible stellar fly-by, examining the subsequent effects up to 4.8 billion years later. "Up to," because some simulations ended early when a planet was jettisoned from the solar system or was destroyed. Yikes! The results are pretty shocking. The scientists found that just a 0.1 percent change in Neptune’s distance to the Sun could plunge the entire solar system into complete chaos — all because a star came within 23 billion miles of the Sun. To put that number into perspective, Proxima Centauri, our closest neighboring star, is about 24.8 trillion miles away. ## Reining It In While a complete collapse of the solar system sounds like a pretty catastrophic event, that kind of demise could stretch out over billions of years. "These weak perturbations don’t destroy the solar system immediately, they just wiggle it around a little bit, and over the next millions or billions of years something goes unstable," Rein [told *New Scientist*](). Perhaps a little more optimistically, 960 of the simulations resulted in insignificant changes. Besides, as the researchers themselves concluded, this kind of stuff only happens in our corner of the universe once every 100 billion years or so, with the effects taking millions of years to come into play. In short, it's an interesting scenario to think about, but not one you'll have to worry about —unless you [plan on living forever](). **READ MORE:** [A passing star shifting Neptune’s orbit could wreck the solar system]() \[*New Scientist*\] **More on neighboring stars:** *[Scientists Spot Dying Star Brutally Tearing Up Its Unfortunate Planets]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()