do stars and planets ever crash into each other?

Question

Do stars and planets ever crash into each other or are they all on their own path??

Answer 1

Yes, they do. It's less likely with stars, but the current theory is that our moon was formed when a planet about the size of Mars crashed into the Earth, and threw out a huge amount of debris. Then, things like galaxies regularly crash into each other. They think that the Milky Way will crash into Andromeda in the distant future.

Answer 2

A better phrasing would be that they "fall into each other."



We are currently falling around the sun. The gravity between the earth and the sun, along with the perpendicular motion to that force of the earth moving along on it's orbit is what keeps us from falling into the sun.



If, for whatever reason, the earth slowed down significantly in it's orbital speed, it would fall closer to the sun, or even into it. If, for some reason, the earth sped up significantly, it would have enough velocity to escape orbit.



What remains in our solar system makes "collisions" very rare, for it is old enough for most unstable orbits to have already "crashed" or have already "escaped" by now. But gravitational perturbations still occur. It wasn't long ago when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 fell into Jupiter.



In young and forming solar systems, which much debris and less established orbits, this happens frequently. Look at the craters on Mercury or the moon. Those are visual remnants of astronomical bodies colliding in the past. Although in most of those cases, the impactors were not anywhere near the mass involved with a "planet" or a "star" as your question indicates.



But look up the current theory on the formation of the moon. Very likely a planetary "crash."



Star collisions are much less likely. Even when two galaxies collide / merge, the amount of space between the stars is great. And collisions are rare, but not impossible.

Answer 3

The Andromeda is predicted to collide in about 4.5 billion years. Trillion stars sound a lot to us, but in space, the night sky could have a trillion stars, but not even half can be seen from Earth by the naked eye. A galaxy could contain googol to a googolplex of stars. The chances of a planet in the Andromeda, impacting with a planet in our solar system, is very low, unless say the Andromeda has much more planets then the Milky Way does, which would have a higher ratio of impact. There's a very high ratio that the stars of the Andromeda will collide with the stars of the Milky Way (duh). But the problem is that the center of the Milky Way is a giant mass of darkness, or in other words, a huge huge huge black hole. Would the nearer stars in our galaxy be forced into the suction of the black hole from the Andromeda's impact? Would that make the Andromeda's force so powerful that denser objects in the Milky Way be thrown into the center black hole? Would that mean that the impact is so powerful, that the googols of more stars in the Andromeda, be so fast and dense, that they literally shoot through our gaseous planets, and the gases loosen, and disintegrate into the space around them? What if the Sun, by then, already died and exploded, letting loose the gravitational pull, and the gases of the gaseous planets slowly move apart? Many factors can effect the Andromeda's impact.

Answer 4

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RE:

do stars and planets ever crash into each other?

Do stars and planets ever crash into each other or are they all on their own path??

Answer 5

"Crash" isn't quite the right way to describe it, but the answer is yes.



Gravity is the force responsible for the orbits of planets around stars, and stars around galaxies. This gravity is what keeps these bodies moving on their paths around one another, and binds these objects together. However, if a planet is knocked off its orbit around a star (for whatever reason), it will travel on its own through space until it is "caught" by a larger body's gravity (another star, for instance). Generally, planets will fall into an orbit around a star, but if it's flung towards the star with enough velocity, it can be pulled in by the star and 'swallowed', incinerated by the intense heat produced by the nuclear reactions.



Like wise, if one planet is traveling towards another with a great deal of velocity, they will collide. Again, it's more common for the smaller of the two to be locked into orbit around the larger one, becoming a satellite (or moon) of the larger planet. We see this happen to asteroids and meteors all the time, so there's no reason to believe it can't happen to planets too.



It usually take a fairly major event to cause a planet to leave its orbit around a star, though, so if you're concerned about this happening to earth, I wouldn't worry about it.

Answer 6

Yes, they do, and more often than you think. it often happens randomly, but mostly in binary star systems, when the two stars get too close to each other. Also, if you want to get really technical, stars and planets collide with black holes, which are essentially the advanced stages of a super- or hyper-massive star, whenever they get caught in it's gravity web.

Answer 7

no they do not ,i base that statement on reality verses theory, we humans have never actually witnessed such an event, in the process of creation we can t begin to understand what took place, what we can do though is speak to reality and that tells us that planets and stars do not collide with one another. two truths do not contradict one another, something does not become factual until you have actually seen and documented it, or you can recreate the same process yourself in order to document it as being possible.

Answer 8

Yes and galaxies collide and suns explode. Evidence of these facts can be found browsing hubblesite galleries and reading the accompanying texts.

Answer 9

Yes they do. Even galaxies collide.

Answer 10

Yes.



We have never seen this happen officially, but there is no reason why it can't happen.



It won't happen in our solar system any time soon.