• Question: do you think its possible that if the suns gravataitional pull may become weak and a planet might end up going off into space?

    Asked by tonieastup123 to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 15 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 15 Mar 2012:

      Nope!

    • Photo: Karen Masters

      Karen Masters answered on 17 Mar 2012:

      The only way to change the gravity of the Sun is to change it’s mass, and that’s not going to happen – at least not until the Sun starts dying and blowing off its atmosphere. Then all sort of odd things will start happening to the planets (don’t worry we have 5 billion years before then).

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 18 Mar 2012:

      No, that would mean the sun would have to lose a lot of mass. A more likely possibility is that another star will come close and disrupt the solar system. When this happens, a planet may be possibly ejected and end up going off into space.

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 19 Mar 2012:

      The only way that the gravity of any planet or star (or anything) can become weaker is if it loses some of its mass. Because the sun is burning light elements to make heavier elements, it is actually becoming heavier if anything! The only time it will lose mass is if it explodes into a supernova (which our sun probably won’t), and then floating off into space won’t be a problem, because all the planets will be destroyed in the explosion!

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