Study on Mercury’s orbit reveals the sun is losing mass

Our roughly 4.6 billion-year-old sun is getting older and as it continues to age, the weaker its grip on our solar system becomes. 

That’s according to a new NASA study, which looked at changes in Mercury’s orbit to determine the health of the sun and found that the sun has been losing mass over time.

As a result, the orbits of planets in our solar system are expanding, similar to the ‘waist band of a couch potato in midlife,’ NASA said. 

Our sun is beginning to lose its grip on the solar system as it continues to age, according to NASA. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun, which makes it ‘exquisitely sensitive’ to the star’s gravitational pull. Scientists determined Mercury’s position using radio tracking data.

IS THE SUN LOSING ITS GRIP? 

Researchers at NASA and MIT discovered that as our sun gets older, its mass becomes smaller and smaller.

As the sun ages, its gravitational pull over the solar system also weakens.

The scientists used Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, which states that massive objects, such as the sun, have the effect of warping the space-time continuum around them.

The study used data collected from NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, which orbited Mercury between March 2011 and April 2015 to show that the sun is losing its gravitational pull.

Mercury’s orbit shows that warping most clearly because it’s the closest planet to the sun.

A team of NASA and MIT scientists were also able to learn more about Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity through the research study. 

Einstein discovered that massive objects, such as the sun, have the effect of warping the space-time continuum around them.   

Mercury shows this effect most clearly because it’s the closest planet to the sun.

‘Mercury is the perfect test object for these experiments because it is so sensitive to the gravitational effect and activity of the Sun,’ said Antonio Genova, the lead author of the study and a MIT researcher working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in a statement. 

Scientists determined tiny differences in Mercury’s position by drawing radio tracking data that monitored the location of NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft while the mission was still going on.

The MESSENGER spacecraft made three ‘flybys’ of Mercury in 2008 and 2009 and orbited Mercury between March 2011 and April 2015. 

MESSENGER ran out of gas and crashed into Mercury in 2015, which effectively ended the mission. 

Researchers were still able to harness the data to learn more about how the sun’s gravity changes over time, as well as general relativity. 

A team of researchers discovered that, using Einstein's theory of general relativity, they could determine how quickly our aging sun is losing its gravitational pull over the solar system

A team of researchers discovered that, using Einstein’s theory of general relativity, they could determine how quickly our aging sun is losing its gravitational pull over the solar system

‘We’re addressing long-standing and very important questions both in fundamental physics and solar science by using a planetary-science approach,’ said Erwan Mazarico, a geophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. ‘By coming at these problems from a different perspective, we can gain more confidence in the numbers, and we can learn more about the interplay between the Sun and the planets.’

The data showed that the sun is gradually losing its grip over Mercury and other planets in the solar system.

However, it’s increasing at a rate that’s likely to remain minuscule in humans’ daily lives, Gizmodo noted.



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