The effect of black hole passing by our solar system ( Experiment 2 )

Most people think that if a black hole is passing by our solar system, the black hole is going to suck everything in the solar system, into it. This is not entirely true, matter only get sucked by a black hole if it pass too close to it. Once matter enter the event horizon, there will be no way back, but the Schwarzchild Radius of a black hole is far less than the size of our solar system.

For a comparison, the size of the Sun is far smaller than the size of the solar system, and a black hole is something that have far higher density than ordinary star like our Sun. From these facts, we can easily know that a black hole ,with the same size as the Sun, will have smaller Schwarzchild Radius than the size of the Sun, so it must be several order of magnitude smaller than the size of our Solar System.

What we have to worry about if a black hole passing by our solar system is not about getting sucked into it, like most people believe. We have to worry about the effect of its gravity, which may disrupt the orbit of some planets in our solar system. For example, a black hole passing by between Mars and Jupiter, may disrupt the "stability" of asteroid belt, causing it to enter the inner region of solar system. This may increase the probability of meteors hitting the inner planets.

Fifth Case - 1000 Solar Mass Black Hole

In this experiment, a 1000 Solar Mass Black Hole is going to pass the solar system plane, 1.26 AU from the sun, 2.26 AU from earth. All planets are lining up in one side of the solar system, while the 1000 Solar Mass Black Hole "hit" solar system in the opposing side. Initially the black hole is 9.6E12 m ( 64,000 AU ) away from the solar system plane, and closing the solar system with speed of 0.1c. ( click image for more detail )

As seen from the experiment result, the Black Hole had pulled the Sun, and disrupt the orbit of outer planets. The only "surviving" planets are Mercury, Venus and Earth, but Venus and Earth now have orbit with greater eccentricity. This may cause Earth to be baked by the Sun in the closest point, or frozen in the farthest point, which will surely disrupt the biosphere. Sun have been pulled away by the black hole, causing the outer planets to be left behind, becoming rogue planets, planets that don't orbit any star.

There is a feature that interest me in bottom left picture, which is about the movement of other planets as viewed from Earth. The movement of planet lefts behind by the Sun relative to Earth, display something called retrograde movement, caused by the fact that Earth is orbiting the Sun. This movement is in fact, was one of the sign that not all celestial bodies orbit earth, like geocentric theorist believed.

Sixth Case - 1000 Solar Mass Black Hole

In this experiment, a 1000 Solar Mass Black Hole is going to pass solar system plane, 3.3333 AU from the Sun, between the orbit of Mars and Jupiter. Initially the black hole is 9.6E12 m ( 64,000 AU ) away from the solar system plane, and closing the solar system with speed of 0.01c. ( click image for more detail )


The experiment result shows, that most planets orbit was disrupted so badly, that the only "surviving" planets is Mercury and Earth. All the outer planets have at one time pass the Sun in close distance ( top-left ). Jupiter was especially so close to the sun, that we can expect it to become a gigantic comet for several days, before escaping to the interstellar space. Both Mercury and Earth now, occupy orbits with greater eccentricity than originally was.

The other interesting features is the movement of Earth relative to Mercury and Mercury relative to earth, after the black hole leave our solar system plane (mid-right and bottom left). The movement of both Earth relative to Mercury and Mercury relative to Earth are chaotics, and exhibit a shape of "&". This had lead me to plan for the next experiment about "the movement of planet with eccentric orbit relative to other planet with eccentric orbit", which I will upload later.

Seventh Case - 1000 Solar Mass Black Hole

This 7th experiment is the same with the 6th experiment, except that now I use 100 Solar Mass Black Hole. ( click image for more detail )

The experiment result shows, that all inner planets had "survived" but have to exhibit more eccentric orbit. The new orbit of Mercury and Earth have some point where they are so close, that there might be two probability that can happen, Mercury may hit Earth sometimes in the future, or Earth may slingshot Mercury away as they come close enough but didn't hit each other. The disruption caused by the black hole had caused all the outer planet to escape the Solar System.

In all experiment, I realize that there is something general there. It is easier for black hole to disrupt the orbit of outer planets, while it is harder to disrupt the orbit of inner planets. Planets close to the sun, have smaller probability of being thrown away from the solar system, even if they have to occupy orbit with higher eccentricity after the black hole had leave the solar system.

Download NCGS Program and Source Code here