this post was submitted on 15 Apr 2024
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According to Wikipedia it takes 248 years for Pluto to orbit the sun! Sometimes it's eccentric orbit brings it closer to the sun than Neptune!
Does that mean eventually Pluto will crash into Neptune in the absence of something else taking them out first?
Apparently not. There are 2 reasons for this: while Neptune's and Pluto's orbits overlap on images, they overlap in such a way they never overlap on the same 3D point in space. Ther is also gravitational resonance[2], where each planet speeds up or slows down as the other approaches
[1]https://www.astronomy.com/science/ask-astro-will-pluto-and-neptune-ever-collide/, [2]: https://www.sciencefocus.com/space/could-neptune-and-pluto-ever-collide-as-their-orbits-intersect