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I wonder what happens to the planets in the solar system when a rogue planets gets sucked into the star (sun) ? I mean, yeah it'd be bad if a rogue planet smas

I wonder what happens to the planets in the solar system when a rogue planets gets sucked into the star (sun) ? I mean, yeah it'd be bad if a rogue planet smashed into us, or even came close enough to mess with our gravitational pool (or the moons). but I imagine if an earth sized or bigger slammed into the sun, that we'd feel the effects of this. massive solar flare roasting our planet alive? a shower of ejecta from the collision that we pass through? it changes the mass of the sun in a significant way that changes the pull it has on the planets around it?

redler 8y ago
Watch the film “Melancholia” for a dark take on the effect of a rogue planet.
- gnulinux 8y ago
  I was about to suggest this movie, but since someone else suggested it, I might as well note that Melancholia has more to do with other things than "a planet crashing into earth". It's more of an existential catastrophe than a terrestrial catastrophe.
tehlike 8y ago
Not much would happen: https://gizmodo.com/what-a-giant-solar-flare-would-look-like-next-to-earth-1784659680 https://gizmodo.com/what-a-giant-solar-flare-would-look-like...
Thorondor 8y ago
That's very, very unlikely. A rogue planet passing near a star wouldn't crash into the star, it would follow a hyperbolic trajectory out of the system.
PhasmaFelis 8y ago
I haven't done the math, but I'd be mildly surprised if there were any dangerous effects. The Sun is just so big relative to even the largest planets, and much much denser as well; I suspect that most of the ejecta thrown up by a collision would be pulled back down the gravity well before reaching Earth orbit, and the mass of a planet is so small compared to the Sun that I doubt it would alter its gravity well appreciably.
duxup 8y ago
Would a earth sized planet really make much a difference if it hit the sun? Considering the size difference I'm not sure we'd see much of an event as far as ON earth effects.
tomatotomato37 8y ago
Both the sun and the distance's involved are massive, so besides the scientific observations nothing will change. You would need something massive like a brown dwarf that's already near the fusion point to really screw up the sun The voyage the planet takes through the solar system might drag some asteroids with it however, which could lead to some fun
- senectus1 8y ago
  yeah you're right. I sometimes forget to put the size and distance of things into perspective.
- ianai 8y ago
  And that (near critical mass rogue planets smashing into stats) sounds like a cool angle for visual simulations.
ChuckMcM 8y ago
Napkin math (aka pure speculation) suggests that unless the rogue planet hit the star directly and at an angle that could send ejecta our way, the results would be more observational than catastrophic. The Earth is roughly 333,000 times less massive than the Sun. Think of it this way, If an asteroid hit the Earth that was, in relative terms, the size of the earth relative to the sun, it would be about 1/3 the size of Ceres. Everything on Earth would die but the other planets would probably not notice. Given that the surface of the Sun can be treated, to a first approximation, as a fluid, an impact that was perpendicular to the surface would likely have the same characteristics of a milk drop. Which is to say a large wave would race away from the impact point and the collapsing of that wave in would eject a bit of coronal mass roughly equal to 1% of the mass of the impactor (note this makes a big, and unsupported, assumption about the viscosity of the solar corona.) The only scary bit comes if the rogue planet enters the solar system slightly off the plane of the ecliptic and hits the Sun in a glancing blow. In such a scenario it could transfer a huge amount of momentum into the coronal mass which would then immediately begin to head away from the Sun. If the Earth were in the path of that mass it would probably wipe everything out after blowing off our atmosphere. This wouldn't be good for the rogue planet either, which would probably enter a hyperbolic orbit and shoot away from the solar system on a new trajectory. In the unfortunate circumstance that this "coronal braking maneuver" was sufficient to slow the planet enough to be captured by the Sun, the remaining planets would get to witness periodic brushes with the Sun by the rogue planet until it had lost enough energy to fall into the Sun. That would be mitigated if the orbit it fell into pulled it by Jupiter or another large planet which, by virtue of its gravity circularize the orbit sufficiently that it would not come near the corona on future orbits.
- qubex 8y ago
  Thumbs up for Coronal Breaking Manoeuvre!
  - dc443 8y ago
    the word is spelled "brake"
- cobbzilla 8y ago
skookumchuck 8y ago
Remember when that comet crashed into Jupiter? Not much happened, even on Jupiter's surface.
sudhirj 8y ago
There's an exploration of that in book 2 of the Three Body Problem / The Dark Forest. Don't remember exact details, but I think it posited the destruction of the inner solar system, mostly due to solar wind both roasting the inner planets, and slowing them down - which causes more planets to fall into the sun in a chain reaction.
GuB-42 8y ago
It sounds like a perfect question for XKCD's what-if? (https://what-if.xkcd.com/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/) Too bad it isn't regularly updated anymore.

redler 8y ago

Watch the film “Melancholia” for a dark take on the effect of a rogue planet.

gnulinux 8y ago
I was about to suggest this movie, but since someone else suggested it, I might as well note that Melancholia has more to do with other things than "a planet crashing into earth". It's more of an existential catastrophe than a terrestrial catastrophe.

tehlike 8y ago

Not much would happen: https://gizmodo.com/what-a-giant-solar-flare-would-look-like-next-to-earth-1784659680 https://gizmodo.com/what-a-giant-solar-flare-would-look-like...

Thorondor 8y ago

That's very, very unlikely. A rogue planet passing near a star wouldn't crash into the star, it would follow a hyperbolic trajectory out of the system.

PhasmaFelis 8y ago

I haven't done the math, but I'd be mildly surprised if there were any dangerous effects. The Sun is just so big relative to even the largest planets, and much much denser as well; I suspect that most of the ejecta thrown up by a collision would be pulled back down the gravity well before reaching Earth orbit, and the mass of a planet is so small compared to the Sun that I doubt it would alter its gravity well appreciably.

duxup 8y ago

Would a earth sized planet really make much a difference if it hit the sun? Considering the size difference I'm not sure we'd see much of an event as far as ON earth effects.

tomatotomato37 8y ago

Both the sun and the distance's involved are massive, so besides the scientific observations nothing will change. You would need something massive like a brown dwarf that's already near the fusion point to really screw up the sun The voyage the planet takes through the solar system might drag some asteroids with it however, which could lead to some fun

senectus1 8y ago
yeah you're right. I sometimes forget to put the size and distance of things into perspective.
ianai 8y ago
And that (near critical mass rogue planets smashing into stats) sounds like a cool angle for visual simulations.

ChuckMcM 8y ago

Napkin math (aka pure speculation) suggests that unless the rogue planet hit the star directly and at an angle that could send ejecta our way, the results would be more observational than catastrophic. The Earth is roughly 333,000 times less massive than the Sun. Think of it this way, If an asteroid hit the Earth that was, in relative terms, the size of the earth relative to the sun, it would be about 1/3 the size of Ceres. Everything on Earth would die but the other planets would probably not notice. Given that the surface of the Sun can be treated, to a first approximation, as a fluid, an impact that was perpendicular to the surface would likely have the same characteristics of a milk drop. Which is to say a large wave would race away from the impact point and the collapsing of that wave in would eject a bit of coronal mass roughly equal to 1% of the mass of the impactor (note this makes a big, and unsupported, assumption about the viscosity of the solar corona.) The only scary bit comes if the rogue planet enters the solar system slightly off the plane of the ecliptic and hits the Sun in a glancing blow. In such a scenario it could transfer a huge amount of momentum into the coronal mass which would then immediately begin to head away from the Sun. If the Earth were in the path of that mass it would probably wipe everything out after blowing off our atmosphere. This wouldn't be good for the rogue planet either, which would probably enter a hyperbolic orbit and shoot away from the solar system on a new trajectory. In the unfortunate circumstance that this "coronal braking maneuver" was sufficient to slow the planet enough to be captured by the Sun, the remaining planets would get to witness periodic brushes with the Sun by the rogue planet until it had lost enough energy to fall into the Sun. That would be mitigated if the orbit it fell into pulled it by Jupiter or another large planet which, by virtue of its gravity circularize the orbit sufficiently that it would not come near the corona on future orbits.

qubex 8y ago
Thumbs up for Coronal Breaking Manoeuvre!
- dc443 8y ago
  the word is spelled "brake"
cobbzilla 8y ago

skookumchuck 8y ago

Remember when that comet crashed into Jupiter? Not much happened, even on Jupiter's surface.

sudhirj 8y ago

There's an exploration of that in book 2 of the Three Body Problem / The Dark Forest. Don't remember exact details, but I think it posited the destruction of the inner solar system, mostly due to solar wind both roasting the inner planets, and slowing them down - which causes more planets to fall into the sun in a chain reaction.

GuB-42 8y ago

It sounds like a perfect question for XKCD's what-if? (https://what-if.xkcd.com/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/) Too bad it isn't regularly updated anymore.