Hollywood films concerning the end of the world abound, from Armageddon to the Day After Tomorrow.

If a worldwide apocalypse is imminent, what may be the cause of the extinction of all life on Earth?

Researchers think they may have the solution at last, and it could be a gruesome end for humanity.

According to a recent study, scientists from the University of Bordeaux and the Planetary Science Institute believe that a passing star might throw Earth out of orbit.

Additionally, without the Sun to keep us warm, all inhabitants, including humans, would perish from freezing to death.

Fortunately, this is quite unlikely to occur.

 

The team estimates that there is a one in 500 probability that Earth will be thrown out of orbit by a passing star during the next five billion years.

“We find a 0.3% chance that Mars will be lost through collision or ejection and a 0.2% probability that Earth will be involved in a planetary collision or ejected,” the team wrote in their study. 

Scientists have been wondering how the Earth might end for decades.

Catastrophic events might include nuclear war, a huge asteroid impact, a wandering black hole, the emergence of killer robots, or the reversal of our planet’s magnetic field.

Nathan Kaib and Sean Reynold set out to determine whether passing stars could be the cause of their recent study, which was published in arXiv.

“The long-term dynamical future of the Sun’s planets has been simulated and statistically analyzed in great detail,” the pair explained. 

“But most prior work considers the solar system as completely isolated, neglecting the potential influence of field star passages.”

Over the course of the following five billion years, the two performed hundreds of simulations of our solar system with passing stars in order to address this question.

The eight planets in our solar system, together with the dwarf planet Pluto, are “significantly less stable than previously thought,” according to their alarming calculations.

According to models, Pluto has the highest possibility of being lost due to a collision or ejection, with a five percent chance.

Earth has a 0.2% risk of being thrown out of the solar system, whereas Mars has a marginally better chance of 0.3 percent.

The scientists say that the most dangerous stars to watch for are those that pass near 100 times the distance from the sun as Earth does.

The simulations indicate that for the next five billion years, there is a five percent possibility of such a close encounter.

“In summary, passing stars can alter the stability of the planets and Pluto as well as the secular architecture of the giant planets over the next 5 Gyrs [5 billion years,” the authors concluded. 

“Their significance on the solar system’s dynamical future largely depends on the strength of the most powerful stellar passage over this time span, which is uncertain by orders of magnitude.”

“This uncertainty in the Sun’s future powerful stellar encounters means that the spectrum of future secular evolution and planetary instabilities is broader than that implied by isolated models of solar system evolution.”