RESEARCHERS believe that a rogue star could save Earth a billion years from now.
In around a billion years, Earth will grow too hot to be habitable thanks to our Sun growing larger and hotter.
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However, there’s a slight chance that a passing rogue star could propel Earth of out its orbit and back into a cooler zone, a new theoretical study says.
Rogue stars describe stars that have been ejected from their home solar systems and now traveling through interstellar space.
While these stars are quite rare, they pose a potential threat to planets in their path.
However, according to the new study, it could be Earth’s saving grace hundreds of millions of years from now.
Today, Earth is clearly in our solar system’s habitable zone – the distance from a star at which liquid water could exist on orbiting planets’ surfaces.
But because our Sun is a Red Giant, it will grow hotter and larger, until it eventually consumes Earth in 5 billion years.
This prompted scientists to investigate the possibility of Earth being removed from its orbit to become a free-floating planet.
To play around with this concept, a team of astronomers simulated what would happen if a rogue star came our way.
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This occurrence, which has happened in the past, would throw many planets out of their normal orbit, including Earth.
In their 12,000 simulations, the researchers came across some interesting scenarios.
In some simulations, Earth was shoved into a colder orbit, but in others, our planet ended up in the Oort cloud – a spherical layer of icy objects surrounding our Sun.
More interesting still, Earth was gravitationally tugged by the star in other simulations.
However, even in the very, very slim chance that a rogue star would come our way, Earth would still only have about a 1-in-35,000 chance of surviving.
The new study has been accepted for publication in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
