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If an Earth-sized rogue planet passed through our solar system, missing the planets, how much disruption would it cause?
Alex McDowell
London, UK
It depends on how close it came to any planets. Venus, which is roughly Earth-sized, sometimes gets to within 0.3 astronomical units (45,000,000 km) of Mercury and causes tiny but measurable perturbations in its orbit.
If it misses planets, it might hit their satellites, causing a lot of debris to be thrown off, which could end up raining down on planets. If it came close enough to any body in the solar system, it would…
