The solar system will fall apart far sooner than anyone thought, scientists say

Earth will be long gone by then, but new research shows the outer planets will be thrown out too, and a billion times earlier than expected, according to astrophysics research.

The outer planets of the solar system will be thrown into chaos roughly a billion years after the Sun dies, a new study has found, cutting their expected life span a billion-fold.

Previous estimates put the stability of the giant planets' orbits at around a quintillion years, far longer than the current age of the universe.

Researchers at California’s Institute of Technology (Caltech) were investigating how the sun’s slow death would impact the outer planets including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

It was also previously believed by many scientists, including Isaac Newton, that the sun would shed its mass smoothly as it slowly died, transitioning first into a Red Giant and later a White Dwarf.

Earth, Venus and Mercury would be the first to go, consumed by the Sun as it expanded into a Red Giant, with Mars the lone survivor, sitting far enough away to escape the engulfment.

Earlier studies found the outer planets would survive this process, with their orbits widening to about twice their current size as the Sun lost mass. Their eventual break-up was expected to come only from passing stars, over 30 to 100 billion years.

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