I feel pretty comfortable, as an astronomer, saying that nothing in this universe is forever except energy. Even black holes will eventually evaporate away.

As a human being with a life expectancy of 70-some-odd years, it is hard to worry about the death of black holes trillions of years from now, but as a human interested in the fate of humanity, the stability of our own solar system is something easier to worry about, if you are looking for something new to worry about. If you are looking… Why?

While climate change doesn’t offer a lot of hope, there are more worlds than this, and according to new models from Angel Zhivkov and Ibaylo Tounchev, the other worlds in our solar system should be stable for the next 100,000 years. They ran millions of simulations that looked at the gravitational interactions of the eight main planets and classic planet Pluto. They found their models are most sensitive to errors in mass and position, but find that within expected errors, our solar system is expected to be stable.

So, in a world where everything seems to be topsy turvy, we can count on orbits to remain stable… for at least 100,000 years.

More Information

The Solar System is Stable for at Least the Next 100,000 Years (Universe Today)

“A computer assisted proof for 100,000 years stability of the solar system,” Angel Zhivkov and Ivaylo Tounchev (preprint)