this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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Funny: Home of the Haha

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[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Does that mean eventually Pluto will crash into Neptune in the absence of something else taking them out first?

[โ€“] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago

Apparently not. There are 2 reasons for this: while Neptune's and Pluto's orbits overlap on images, they overlap in such a way they never overlap on the same 3D point in space. Ther is also gravitational resonance[2], where each planet speeds up or slows down as the other approaches

[1]https://www.astronomy.com/science/ask-astro-will-pluto-and-neptune-ever-collide/, [2]: https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/could-neptune-and-pluto-ever-collide-as-their-orbits-intersect