Between Mars and Jupiter there is a space large enough to easily host at least one other world – but it doesn’t. And as a new study shows, it may be because of this that life on Earth can exist.
“Planetary scientists often wish there was something between the two planets. It feels like a missed opportunity.” stated in a press release astrophysicist Stephen Kane from the University of California
“There are many massive planets in this gap in other star systems. We call them super-Earths,” he added.
What did the simulations show?
Using dynamic computer simulations, Kane and his colleagues decided to fill this unused space with hypothetical super-Earths of various types to see how this would affect other planets.
It turns out that just one super-Earth would cause disaster. It would “nudge” Jupiter, which has a mass of approximately one-thousandth that of the Sun, so its gravitational influence is enormous. Earth, Mercury, and Venus would literally be catapulted from their current orbits outside the Solar System as a result, and Uranus and Neptune could suffer the same fate.
It is probably clear that something like this would have devastating consequences for life on our planet. But according to experts, even if such a hypothetical super-Earth affected our orbit only slightly, it could have a drastic impact.
