Happily orbiting the Sun, the eight planets (plus Pluto and other minor planets) appear to have a high degree of long-term gravitational stability. But Jupiter has a huge gravitational influence over its siblings, especially the smaller planets.

The huge gravitational pull of Jupiter seems to be bullying Mercury into an increasingly eccentric death-orbit, possibly flinging the cosmic lightweight into the path of Venus. To make things worse, there might be dire consequences for Earth…

The researchers

Jacques Laskar

Konstantin Batygin

and Gregory Laughlin

formulate four possible scenarios as to what may happen as Mercury gets disturbed:

1. Mercury will crash into the Sun
2. Mercury will be ejected from the solar system altogether
3. Mercury will crash into Venus
4. Mercury will crash into Earth

The last option is obviously the worst case scenario for us, but all will be bad news for Mercury, the small planet's fate appears to be sealed.