Solar System May Fall Apart Soon After the Sun Dies

Researchers at Caltech modeled the Solar System's fate after the Sun becomes a white dwarf. Their simulations suggest planetary orbits could cross within a billion years, triggering a chaotic scattering of the planets.

• Model shows dynamical instability of planetary orbits after the Sun's death
• Chaos could begin 1 billion years after the Sun becomes a white dwarf
• The dying Sun ejects mass in 'stochastic kicks', disrupting orbits
• The paper was published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters