American astronomers have revealed the date of the destruction of the solar system. They performed computer simulations to determine the fate of all outer planets when the Sun turns into a red giant and then into a white dwarf, losing half its mass. The results of a study by scientists from the University of California Los Angeles, California Institute of Technology Pasadena and the University of Michigan are published in The Astronomical Journal.
According to the conclusions of experts, due to the fact that the mass of the Sun decreases, the orbits of the giant planets will greatly expand. The orbits of Jupiter and Saturn form a new stable configuration with an orbital resonance of 5: 2 (there are two revolutions of Saturn for five revolutions of Jupiter around the Sun). Although such an orbital resonance is observed today, in the future planets will become more vulnerable to the disturbing effects of stars passing by the solar system.
Within the next 30 billion years, such stars will cause large-scale instability in the orbits of the gas giants, which will eject all but one of the planets from the solar system over another ten billion years. In about 50 billion years, a new encounter with the star within 200 astronomical units will rid the cooling Sun of the last planet.
Thus, the complete destruction of the solar system will occur within the next 100 billion years. This is significantly more than the current age of the universe, but less than previous estimates.