Jupiter shifts orbit, Earth goes rogue...what happens?

[ZenBeam]

@Chronos

Is anyone claiming that the temperature drop would happen in a matter of hours?

@bup

In those old threads, particularly the 2007 one, linked in MEBuckner’s post.

I looked through the 2007 thread, and I didn’t see anyone claiming the Earth would freeze in a matter of hours. There was one person asking why it wouldn’t freeze that quickly, but that’s all I saw.

ETA: There were a couple people talking about 8 1/2 minutes, but that was just a joke about how long it takes the light from the Sun to get to the Earth.

[dracoi]

@XT

Based on the show I saw, I’d say this is incorrect. They were talking about these hot Jupiter’s lasting in the millions of years only, in their new close orbits to their suns…from memory, the one they were talking about would last no more than 10 million years at most. And they were positing on the show rocky planets such as ours being tossed out of the solar system when these hot Jupiter’s shifted orbit, so that means it didn’t happen in the very early stages of planetary formation but later on.

At any rate, I’m more interested in what might happen to the Earth if it was ejected from the solar system, regardless of the exact mechanism. From watching the show, it looked like they were positing a planet would be ejected fairly quickly, once the hot Jupiter shifted orbit towards the sun…less than a year from the little diagram they were showing (looked like that PC game where you can play with planetary orbits and create solar systems…can’t recall the name of it).

From what I see on a quick search of Google, the escape velocity for the sun is 617 km/s. That’s 53 million km/day. You wouldn’t necessarily head out in a straight line, but if you did, that’d put you past Neptune’s orbit in about 90 days. That matches the diagram you’re describing from the show.

Also, from what I know of planetary formation theories, there would have been rocky bodies like the Earth existing even at a time in our solar system when the gas giants were quite mobile. Wikpediadescribes how Neptune and Uranus were believed to be much closer to the sun, and the idea that Neptune may have originated closer to the sun than Uranus. Both shifted out as Jupiter and Saturn settled down into more stable positions relative to each other. The theory is that Jupiter and Saturn didn’t settle down until about 500 million years into the solar system’s formation. The rocky planets existed as sub-planetary bodies as early as 100,000 years, and reached something close to their current sizes by 100 million years. (Read up a little further on the Wikipedia page). So the rocky planets were done forming well before the gas giants had settled down… and also well before life would have arisen.

[Ethilrist]

@MEBuckner

From 2010 we have If the sun stoped shining, **which in turn leads as well to the 2007 thread **What Would Happen If The Sun Burned Out?

um… I’m assuming that doesn’t read the way you meant it to…

[Speak_to_me_Maddie]

@msmith537

The sun is still heating the other side of the planet.

Your article said -100F within a year. I would have thought it’d be faster since the temperature drops 5-10 degrees normally just by having the sun go down at night.

But our planet also produces it’s own heat, quite a bit of it.

[XT]

@dracoi

From what I see on a quick search of Google, the escape velocity for the sun is 617 km/s. That’s 53 million km/day. You wouldn’t necessarily head out in a straight line, but if you did, that’d put you past Neptune’s orbit in about 90 days. That matches the diagram you’re describing from the show.

Also, from what I know of planetary formation theories, there would have been rocky bodies like the Earth existing even at a time in our solar system when the gas giants were quite mobile. Wikpediadescribes how Neptune and Uranus were believed to be much closer to the sun, and the idea that Neptune may have originated closer to the sun than Uranus. Both shifted out as Jupiter and Saturn settled down into more stable positions relative to each other. The theory is that Jupiter and Saturn didn’t settle down until about 500 million years into the solar system’s formation. The rocky planets existed as sub-planetary bodies as early as 100,000 years, and reached something close to their current sizes by 100 million years. (Read up a little further on the Wikipedia page). So the rocky planets were done forming well before the gas giants had settled down… and also well before life would have arisen.

Yes, I recall seeing a theory that Uranus and Neptune might have swapped places in the distant past when the solar system was still in flux. I suppose if rocky planets formed that early in the solar system then it’s possible that an unstable large Jupiter might have moved towards the inner solar system and a close orbit with it’s sun before life could have formed. In that case, the rocky planet hurtled out would still be pretty hot, so it would presumably take a lot longer to through off it’s primordial heat and start to cool down.

[Johnny_Bravo]

XKCD’s wonderful “What If?” column gave this question the treatment recently.

[XT]

I guess maybe Iceland would be the place to be.

Within a week, the average global surface temperature would drop below 0°F. In a year, it would dip to –100°. The top layers of the oceans would freeze over, but in an apocalyptic irony, that ice would insulate the deep water below and prevent the oceans from freezing solid for hundreds of thousands of years. Millions of years after that, our planet would reach a stable –400°, the temperature at which the heat radiating from the planet’s core would equal the heat that the Earth radiates into space, explains David Stevenson, a professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology.

Although some microorganisms living in the Earth’s crust would survive, the majority of life would enjoy only a brief post-sun existence. Photosynthesis would halt immediately, and most plants would die in a few weeks. Large trees, however, could survive for several decades, thanks to slow metabolism and substantial sugar stores. With the food chain’s bottom tier knocked out, most animals would die off quickly, but scavengers picking over the dead remains could last until the cold killed them.

Humans could live in submarines in the deepest and warmest parts of the ocean, but a more attractive option might be nuclear- or geothermal-powered habitats. One good place to camp out: Iceland. The island nation already heats 87 percent of its homes using geothermal energy, and, says astronomy professor Eric Blackman of the University of Rochester, people could continue harnessing volcanic heat for hundreds of years.

Of course, the sun doesn’t merely heat the Earth; it also keeps the planet in orbit. If its mass suddenly disappeared (this is equally impossible, by the way), the planet would fly off, like a ball swung on a string and suddenly let go.

Hm. So, we’d have a little time to try and do something. I suppose we’d have a bit more time if we were flung out of the solar system as opposed to having the sun just switch off since, presumably, we’d still be getting heat and light from the sun while we were shifting our orbit out of the solar system.

[The_Man_In_Black]

@msmith537

The average temperature of Pluto is around 369 F. Not that far off from absolute zero and the freezing .

You sure about that one? Maybe missing a little “-” in there.

[dracoi]

@XT

I guess maybe Iceland would be the place to be.

Hm. So, we’d have a little time to try and do something. I suppose we’d have a bit more time if we were flung out of the solar system as opposed to having the sun just switch off since, presumably, we’d still be getting heat and light from the sun while we were shifting our orbit out of the solar system.

We’d only be adding a month or two of time given the speed for escape velocity. But I suppose if you have a massive construction project to save the human race, a couple of months might make all the difference in SyFy two-part miniseries.

[Gyrate]

Apologies for fighting the hypothetical, but surely any large body travelling close enough to Earth to dislodge it from its orbit will also play merry havoc with the planet’s basic structure. At the very least you’d have some major earthquakes going on, and possibly so much geological turmoil that most people wouldn’t live long enough for the Big Freeze to get them.

[marshmallow]

How cold can it get before a normal home heating unit dies or is ineffective?

How cold can it get while still allowing normal people to walk and work outside without specialized equipment?

[msmith537]

@The_Man_In_Black

You sure about that one? Maybe missing a little “-” in there.

Did anyone else get confused and think I meant the average temperature of Pluto was a hundred and fifty degrees above the boiling point of water?

Speak to me Maddie! - Not really. Sure there’s a lot of geothermal heat underground and I’m sure the Earth retains a lot of heat. But look how cold it gets in winter or the Antarctic when the sun isn’t shining directly on the Earth.

[eburacum45]

Couldn’t a small population be supported on a frozen Earth indefinitely, just using geothermal energy? With a whole planet to exploit, this wouldn’t be much more dificult than planting a colony on Triton. Maybe the amount of geothermal activity would decline because of the lack of tidal stress from the Sun, but surely plate tectonics wouldn’t stop altogether.

The most important activity of humanity would be prospecting for geothermal energy sources, unless they could develop fusion power, in which case the planet could support life for the indefinite future through heavy ice mining.

I’m fairly sure that there are untold numbers of frozen worlds like this in the deep regions of space, probably more than there are in solar systems. Eventually these worlds might be located and colonised, making then the most common locations for future human colonies.

[user_hostile]

@Johnny_Bravo

XKCD’s wonderful “What If?” column gave this question the treatment recently.

I like this part:

Improved satellite service: When a communications satellite passes in front of the Sun, the Sun can drown out the satellite’s radio signal, causing an interruption in service.[5] Deactivating the Sun would solve this problem.

Of course, he’s skipping over the fact virtually all of the satellites in orbit would begin going into safe mode in a matter of hours, and I can pretty much guarantee within 48 hours every satellite would “freeze” to death.

Buh-bye ISS.

[coremelt]

@eburacum45

Couldn’t a small population be supported on a frozen Earth indefinitely, just using geothermal energy?

You’d have to design completely self contained airtight and heated Biospheres that have their own eco system in balance. We’ve never successfully made one of those and we don’t really know how to.

[nylaw]

@dtilque

There’s lots of problems with the scenario in that story, so I wouldn’t take it as anything like what it would really be like.

What are the issues with that story? (A pail of air)

[coremelt]

@nylaw

What are the issues with that story? (A pail of air)

The “nest” they survive in is not at all airtight, it has ventilation for a coal fire and doesn’t seem to have any sort of airlock. Someone else can do the calculations but I suspect they’d be needing slightly more than a pail of air every hour or so melted to keep themselves a breathable atmosphere at equilibirium. Then there’s the heat loss, if the oxygen is solid, that means its less than 50K outside or -222 celsius. Blankets and foil and a coal fire ain’t going to cut it.

[dtilque]

@XT

Based on the show I saw, I’d say this is incorrect. They were talking about these hot Jupiter’s lasting in the millions of years only, in their new close orbits to their suns…from memory, the one they were talking about would last no more than 10 million years at most. And they were positing on the show rocky planets such as ours being tossed out of the solar system when these hot Jupiter’s shifted orbit, so that means it didn’t happen in the very early stages of planetary formation but later on.

Did this show give any indication of what caused these gas giants to migrate?

During the formation of a stellar system, there’s lots of gas, dust and unassimilated planetisimals around for plants to interact with. This could cause planets to migrate. But once the system settles down, this stuff has been absorbed or ejected and what’s left is mostly in fairly stable orbits (think asteroid and Kuiper belts) so there’s too little to have much effect on the plants’ orbits.

Possibly the planets could have ended up in somewhat too close of orbits and that might eventually cause a planetary migration. I’m not an expert, but I think that’s a possibility. It wouldn’t be in our system – the planets are quite well separated.

BTW, some people above have mentioned (but not by name) the Nice model of how Jupiter and the other gas giants migrated in the early solar system. There’s another model about how the formation of the rocky planets were influence by Jupiter. This happened earlier than the Nice model, so there’s no contradiction between them.

@nylaw

What are the issues with that story? (A pail of air)

Here’s a short list:

1. earthquakes and floods due to dark star
2. Big Jerk as the dark star takes the Earth away from the sun
3. slowing of the rotation of the Earth to 10 days
4. Nest is not airtight. all the air will go straight up the chimney
5. atmosphere freezes out in nice neat layers

There’s others, but it’s late night here, so I can’t think of them right now. If you want any of the above explained, let me know.

[msmith537]

@dtilque

Here’s a short list:

1. earthquakes and floods due to dark star
2. Big Jerk as the dark star takes the Earth away from the sun
3. slowing of the rotation of the Earth to 10 days
4. Nest is not airtight. all the air will go straight up the chimney
5. atmosphere freezes out in nice neat layers

There’s others, but it’s late night here, so I can’t think of them right now. If you want any of the above explained, let me know.

I can possibly see earthquakes and floods due to tidal forces caused by a mass large enough to dislodge the Earth from it’s orbit. I don’t think there would be a “jerk” though.

Forget air going straight up the chimney. How about liquid nitrogen pouring in? If it’s cold enough to turn oxygen into snow (-361 F), it’s cold enough to turn nitrogen into a liquid (-321 F)

Basically it’s not a survivable environment for humans. You might as well write a story called “A Pocket Full of Sunshine” about a family who crashed a rocket on the sun and periodically have to go out to get fissionable material to cook on.

[Chronos]

Forget air going straight up the chimney. How about liquid nitrogen pouring in?

From where? It’s already all on the ground, below the chimney.