> Jacques Laskar and his colleague Mickal Gastineau in 2009 took a more > thorough approach by directly simulating 2500 possible futures. > Each of the 2500 cases has slightly different initial conditions: > Mercury's position varies by about 1 metre between one simulation and > the next.[13] > > In 20 cases, Mercury goes into a dangerous orbit and often ends up > colliding with Venus or plunging into the sun. > Moving in such a warped orbit, Mercury's gravity is more likely to > shake other planets out of their settled paths: > in one simulated case its perturbations send Mars heading towards Earth.[14]
Based on my own heuristic studies of orbital characteristics it's very easy for me to speculate that all the planets in our solar system are in chaotic orbits, particularly if you factor in a sufficient amount of geological time into the equation. IOW, it's a very slow process, for the most part. Nevertheless, chaos may be the norm, not the exception. Seems to me that chaos could also explain a lot of dramatic climatic changes our planet has experienced since it first formed 4.5 billion years ago. Just another wobble, give or take several million years. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
