VISUAL ARCHIVE / IMAGE STORY
The Bond a Flyby Could Break
The Sun and its planets can respond differently to a passing gravitational perturber.
A close flyby can alter the motion of a star and its planets differently. AI-generated conceptual scene; planetary sizes, spacing, debris, and light distortion are not a calculated Solar System encounter.
THE OBSERVATION
What we can actually see.
Encounter calculations depend on the visitor’s mass, speed, distance, and direction. Different accelerations of star and planet can alter their relative orbit; the arrangement of debris here is not the output of a specific Solar System simulation.
THE ILLUSTRATION
What the artwork imagines.
The composition visualizes this idea: The Sun and its planets can respond differently to a passing gravitational perturber. A close flyby can alter the motion of a star and its planets differently. AI-generated conceptual scene; planetary sizes, spacing, debris, and light distortion are not a calculated Solar System encounter.
FROM THE ILLUSTRATED ARTICLE
The story that inspired it.
The article uses a hypothetical stellar-mass black-hole encounter to distinguish orbital disruption, loss of sunlight, and extreme tidal destruction. Those are different possibilities, not a prediction that a visitor is on its way to Earth. This frame focuses on the Sun and its planets can respond differently to a passing gravitational perturber.
Read A Black Hole Could Leave Earth Without a SunCHECK THE RECORD
The image interprets the research below. Follow the original work for the measurements and limits behind the scene.
NASA: Black Holes NASA: Anatomy of a Black Hole NASA: Hubble Determines Mass of Isolated Black Hole Roaming Our Milky Way Galaxy NASA: RXTE Detects “Heartbeat” of Smallest Black Hole Candidate NASA: IXPE’s “Heartbeat Black Hole” Measurements Challenge Current Theories Einstein Online: Schwarzschild Radius Einstein Online: Tidal Effects Malmberg, Davies and Heggie: The Effects of Fly-bys on Planetary Systems Abbot and Switzer: The Steppenwolf, a Proposal for a Habitable Planet in Interstellar SpaceOTHER IMAGE STORIES
Keep looking.
A Planet Can Lose Its Star
Finding Darkness by Its Effects
The Mark Shared by Titan and PlutoEXPLORE IN 3D / MAP 06
Explore the world that depends on the Sun
Explore Earth and the Moon as they are represented in our planetary atlas, then return to the article’s hypothetical disruption. This map does not forecast a black-hole encounter.
Open Earth & Moon map