Do you think the solar system is somewhat stable? Is it difficult to define what you call a chaotic system that can change at any time? Although the planets apparently continue Fixed Orbits Throughout recorded history, reality has been more complex.
Ever since Isaac Newton formulated the law of universal gravitation in 1687, the scientific community has investigated the stability of the solar system and found that even small gravitational perturbations can lead to motion over millions of years. Unpredictable and chaotic behaviors.
Although our planetary system appears to be stable on human timescales, long-term models show that it is actually subject to chaotic variations.
Confused nature
The solar system appears to the naked eye as a perfectly ordered mechanism: the central star and the planets follow their orbits around it in a predictable and regular manner. It seems impossible to imagine it being defined as something chaotic, doesn’t it?
However, this apparent stability hides a more complex reality, for although the gravitational interactions between the planets are subtle, They accumulate over time, which can cause really significant changes in orbital trajectories. Precisely this sensitivity to small changes is the essence Deterministic ConfusionA mathematical concept that describes how different systems become unpredictable due to small perturbations.
What does that mean in the context of the solar system? Even the smallest variation in a planet’s position or speed, after millions of years, result in a drastic change in its orbit and, therefore, in the transformation of our planetary system.
An understanding of precisely this behavior emerged at the end of the 19th century, thanks to the work of scientists such as Henri Paigere, who discovered that, although the laws of celestial mechanics are fixed, The long-term evolution of many body systems can never be predicted. with accuracy. This reflection was completely novel at the time, as it completely revolutionized Newton’s view of a completely predictable and mechanical universe.
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Vibrations and the N-body problem
Now, where can these small changes come from? Will it really happen? Well, at the heart of it chaotic dynamics Two basic concepts are observed: orbital resonances and the n-body problem.
For its part, A Vibration When the orbits of many bodies align or “Tuning” because of the attraction between them. An example is the discovery by Daniel Kirkwood in 1867, when he found that parts of the asteroid belt were nearly empty due to a collision with Jupiter. They were called “Kirkwood Ponds” and the gravitational pull of the planet continually and repeatedly influences the asteroids, changing their orbits and emptying those regions.
The same happens with various objects in the Solar System, such as Pluto’s moons or our own Moon, and although they are usually stabilizing vibrations, in some cases, they can be amplified, leading to Significant orbital changes and contributes to the chaotic behavior of the system.
Asteroid belt conceptualization. Some parts of the belt are empty due to the vibration with Jupiter.
On the other hand, the n-body problem, coming from the difficulty of resolving gravitational interactions of three or more bodies, also affects this panorama. Although two-body interactions can be described very accurately using Newton’s laws, adding a third body creates equations. Very difficult to solveOrbits create a complex movement that is very sensitive.
This means that even small changes in the positions or velocities of the planets can lead to unreliable predictions over long periods of time, meaning that it is almost impossible to predict what will happen to the systems.
The Determinist Confusion
Now, it is true that the understanding of the chaotic behavior of the solar system is much advanced Computer development. Before the era of supercomputers, the complexity of the n-body problem made the calculations necessary to simulate the long-period orbits of the planets impractical.
In fact, each planet in the solar system influences all the others through gravity, creating a large network of interactions that result in truly complex nonlinear equations. However, with the arrival Supercomputers By the 1970s, astronomers were able to perform fairly detailed simulations that confirmed that even small perturbations could lead to very different results, a fundamental principle of deterministic chaos.
Using massive processing algorithms, it is now possible to simulate the orbits of planets over millions of years, for example, demonstrating that a small change in a planet’s orbit due to an asteroid impact can cause interplanetary collisions or even collisions. In ejecting a planet from the solar system. Also, these studies show that they transcend time Between 2 and 230 million yearsAny prediction of the exact positions of the planets would be mere speculation: after that it would be impossible to predict the position of the solar system.
