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will the planets "ups And d" and "ups And e" ever collide?
Recently in an app called exoplanet I discovered a solar system called ups And. In that system there were multiple planets 2 of which had crossing orbital paths. So now I wonder if and when they will collide.
2 Answers
- suittiLv 77 years agoFavorite Answer
In our solar system, Pluto and Neptune have, more or less, crossing orbital paths. But they're in a 3:2 orbital resonance. Neptune orbits three times in the same time the Pluto orbits twice. Pluto's orbit is much more eliptical, crossing inside of Neptune briefly. But Neptune and Pluto never get very close to each other. When Pluto dips inside Neptune's orbit, Neptune is more or less on the other side of the Sun.
We don't know that much about exoplanets. We know the orbital periods, and maybe how much out of round the orbits are. But it can be harder to know the inclination, especially when the planets are detected using radial velocity, as is the case here. "...but the coplanarity of stellar equator with planet orbits is generally not demonstrated.", and "Mutual inclination between planets c and d: 30.4 deg." There's a good chance that in 3 dimensions, the orbits don't cross at all.