English

Is the Solar System Stable ?

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2014-12-24 v1 Mathematical Physics math.MP Chaotic Dynamics

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.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1209.5996,
  title  = {Is the Solar System Stable ?},
  author = {Jacques Laskar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1209.5996},
  year   = {2014}
}

Comments

28 pages, 6 figures. Text of the Lecture given in the Poincar\'e S\'eminar, Paris, on June 2010, submitted

R2 v1 2026-06-21T22:11:40.720Z