Solar System problems

Solar systems are commonly flat discs with planets orbiting a star in one plane, and some planets have one or more moons orbiting them. Isaac Newton did a partial study of this, only sufficient to concluded that the planetary bodies in our solar system have a degree of orbit stability that should maintain their orbits for a long time. But he did not consider other solar system stability issues, and since solar system bodies exert gravitational pulls on each other, the normal structure of a solar system can involve some instabilities, which in the case of our own solar system would chiefly seem to be ;

1. Our spherical Sun with its spherical structure and functioning would be more stable if the planetary gravitational pulls on it were basically distributed spherically. The fact that they are now distributed in one plane only, exerts destabilising pulls on the Sun. Were some planets to orbit the Sun in a plane at 90% to the present planetary orbits then this problem would be much reduced.

2. Our Earth with its spherical structure and functioning would also be more stable if gravitational pulls on it were basically distributed spherically. The chief factor going against that is our having the Moon orbiting Earth. William Gilbert before 1600 concluded that the Moon was pulling our seas and so causing tides, and there is no doubt that the Moon also pulls the land and must help cause earthquakes and continental movement destabilising Earth. A thin flat disc artificial moon would have little gravity and so would not involve such problems if it replaced the Moon.

3. Both the Sun and the Earth would also be more stable if gravitational pulls on them were less from point sources i eg if the Earth's one moon was split into several smaller moons, and if the Sun's few planets were split into a larger number of planets. Then the gravitational pulls on the Earth and the Sun would be less concentrated directionaly.

4. Both the Sun and the Earth would be still more stable if planets did not all have separate orbits with different orbit speeds allowing intermittent alignment conjugation of their gravity pulls.

Clearly our solar system may not be quite as stable a system as many have imagined. And in particular the Sun and the Earth do have real gravitational instability problems.

The relative gravitational pulls of the planets on the Sun at present are about - Mercury=0.37, Venus=1.57, Earth=1.00, Mars=0.05, Jupiter=11.75, Saturn=1.05, Uranus=0.04, Neptune=0.02. Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Earth and Mercury exert the strongest pulls on the Sun. If the planets were in two orbits at 90% with orbit diameters near the present orbit diameters of Mars and Jupiter then their total pulls on the Sun would be about the same as now but with much reduced equatorial effect and much reduced conjugation effect. Of course asteroids, comets and moons have some additional effects.

Another general solar system problem of course is the large number of rogue rocks hurtling around the solar system, many coming out of the asteroid belt because of its gravitational instabilities from the type 3 and 4 affects above.

And there is the general solar radiation problem made severe periodically by increased flare activity as the Sun is affected by its gravitational instabilities.

The Earth may seem to be affected most by the Moon's gravity, but the instabilities of the Sun can and do also have significant effects on the Earth - mostly impacting our weather system and helping to cause ice ages and periodic global warmings. Of course to date mankind has been able to do little or nothing about any of these solar system problems. For more on this see our section on Gravity.