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Yes, you can do this with Mercury. Mercury's orbit is chaotic, so even modifications in its position on the order of millimeters can build up to produce comple
by antognini 5y ago
Yes, you can do this with Mercury. Mercury's orbit is chaotic, so even modifications in its position on the order of millimeters can build up to produce completely different long-term dynamics. In particular, there's a few percent probability that Mercury will get ejected from the Solar System before the Sun dies. [1] It's also possible that Mercury will collide with Venus.
[1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08096 https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08096
- collaborative 5y agoIsn't space exploration then a bit like playing with fire? Like, we could mess up some delicate balance by attempting too many fly-bys
- Gibbon1 5y agoChaotic systems like mercury orbiting the sun have zone of stability where all the potential orbits lay. The energy from a space probe doing a flyby won't impart enough energy to pop it out of that zone. I'm not going to do the math but probably other planets have a larger effect on Mercuries orbit than a space probe does.
- colechristensen 5y agoNo. Everything gets hit by big rocks all the time and are subject to all sorts of perturbations which dwarf anything a little spacecraft can do to a planet.
- perl4ever 5y agoHow would you ever know? It would be like identifying a butterfly that caused a given hurricane.
- mnw21cam 5y agoEspecially given that there are much bigger things than butterflies dashing around everywhere.