(ORDO NEWS) — Astrophysicist Alastair Gunn spoke about what exactly the collision of two huge gas planets – Jupiter and Saturn can lead to. It is worth noting that the collision can be either head-on or cross-over.
The consequences will largely depend on this. Of course, if you take into account the celestial mechanics, then this is unlikely to happen, but still there is an insignificant risk.
This is reported by Science Focus.
The result that a collision can lead to depends largely on the angle of impact, as well as the speed. A head-on impact will cause the gas giants to merge with each other. If the impact speed is too high, then the two nuclei will merge very quickly and the planets will lose a huge amount of inert gases.
In some cases, the complete destruction of not only the nuclei, but also the planets themselves can occur.
In the case of cross-collision, the results can be very different. The nuclei can bypass each other, which will cause the loss of most of the gas shells, but the merger of the planets will not happen.
If Saturn and Jupiter meet at an angle close to zero degrees, then this will not affect the planets in any way. They will continue to move in their orbits without any gas losses.
In some situations, it is cross collisions that can provoke a change in the shape of a gas giant or its “compression”. A similar option was proposed in order to study the early history of the formation of gas planets.
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