Could the chaotic planetary orbit of the ‘3-Body Problem’ exist?

Author Liu Cixin’s book trilogy ‘The 3-Body Problem’ was adapted for television and attracted the attention of thousands of viewers worldwide. Besides being great visual entertainment, this series also tackles a real problem that physicists and astronomers have been trying to solve for a long time. In the series, an alien race lives on a planet at the center of a three-star star system, but could this really happen?

In an article published on the website SpeechPeter Watson, professor of physics at Carleton University in Canada, discusses the real possibility of alien planet orbit in ‘The 3-Body Problem’. He even comments on another work by American author Frederic Brown called ‘Placet Is a Crazy Place’, which deals with the three-body problem.

The aliens in the series, called Trisolarans, live in a representation of the star system Alpha Centauri is home to three stars that are not aligned in the same orbit and follow a path full of constant changes.

In other words, The movement of stars’ orbits is completely unpredictable and chaotic; In the story, these changes cause the aliens to be exposed to temperatures that change from cold to intense heat in a matter of minutes.

“The three-body problem in astronomy is the problem of determining the motion of three celestial bodies that do not move under any influence other than mutual gravitational forces. A general solution to this problem (or the more general problem involving more than three bodies) is not possible because the motion of the bodies quickly becomes chaotic. “As approached in practice, this consists in the problem of determining the disturbances in the motion of one of the bodies about the main or central body, caused by the attraction of the third”, as described in the encyclopedia Britannica.

3-Is the Body Problem real?

In reality, the Alpha Centauri system is actually home to three stars, but it’s not exactly the same as the one presented in the series. DWhile two stars (Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B) orbit each other for about 80 years, the third (Proxima Centauri) is quite far away and is less affected by the gravity of the others.

The history of Liu Cixin’s work presents a completely chaotic and unstable system. possible if three huge cosmic objects orbit close to each other. But the truth is not like that at all. Scientists say that Alpha Centauri’s two main stars move in a stable, non-chaotic orbit, while Proxima Centauri is much further away and has a larger mass.

Well, It may be possible to have a three-star system that fits the three-body problem, but the Alpha Centauri system is slightly different from what is described in the work. In fact, Alpha Centauri can be considered within the scope of the two-body problem, just like the Earth and the Moon; This problem was solved by Isaac Newton in the mid-1660s.

Unfortunately, Scientists have not yet found a solution to the three-body problem; That is, it would not be possible to predict the orbital movement of these three stars. Maybe it would even be possible to discover what would happen in the short term, but scientists could not predict the future of something so complex.

Did you like the content? So stay updated with more astronomy and physics curiosities at TecMundo. If you wish, take the opportunity to understand how mathematicians found 12,000 new solutions to the three-body problem.