Orbital chaos may cause planetary smash-up within solar system

Forget sending probe to Mars, the planet may come crashing right here to Earth if gravitational interactions substantially agitate its now-stable orbit. Boffins Jacques Laskar and Mickael Gastineau of the Paris Observatory say results of a new computer model show a roughly one percent chance within the next five billion years that such a planetary apocalypse will happen. The researchers simulated the most current data available on the interactions of solar system's eight planets (with the edition of Pluto and Earth's moon) over the course of five billion years -- a point in which the sun is expected to swell into a red giant and swallow the inner planets; Kazinform cites Xinhua. See www.chinaview.cn for full version