Is the Solar System Stable ?

TL;DR

This paper reviews the long-standing question of Solar System stability, highlighting recent numerical experiments that reveal chaotic planetary motions and potential instabilities within a few billion years.

Contribution

It summarizes recent computational findings demonstrating chaos and possible planetary collisions, advancing understanding of Solar System dynamics.

Findings

Planetary motions are chaotic over long timescales

Simulations suggest possible planetary collisions or ejections within 5 billion years

Chaotic behavior limits precise long-term predictions

Abstract

Since the formulation of the problem by Newton, and during three centuries, astronomers and mathematicians have sought to demonstrate the stability of the Solar System. Thanks to the numerical experiments of the last two decades, we know now that the motion of the planets in the Solar System is chaotic, which prohibits any accurate prediction of their trajectories beyond a few tens of millions of years. The recent simulations even show that planetary collisions or ejections are possible on a period of less than 5 billion years, before the end of the life of the Sun.