450, 8th Planet
It did not take Klype long to present the first scenario of the Oort planets next encounter. Lucie watched as the synthesized movie ran on the screen.
The Oort planet reached the outer planet’s orbit first. Their gravitation forces were mutual, so they dragged themselves towards each other. They did not collide, but passed with good margin. However, the large number of moons, ice and rocks, were simply determined to crash.
Like a large battle, the Oort objects rammed the planet system. Several objects collided directly, while most of them burned off in the atmosphere. All in all, the eighth planet gained a lot of mass. Long after the crossing, the planet was bombarded by objects from the Oort cloud. The mass turned to gas, so the eight planet’s size grew increasingly. It became a gas giant.
Finally, one of the eight planet’s moons had to give in. Its speed was considerably reduced, because it sailed towards the Oort objects. The moon’s orbit became a spiral with a certain fall towards the planet. The atmosphere around the moon caught fire while it fell like a giant comet towards the surface.
The explosion sent clouds of gas out of the atmosphere. The moon was damage hard, but flew like a ricochet off the planet. It left a big rift in the planet and destabilized the atmosphere. Some pieces of the moon found their orbit around the planet. However, in the following millions of years, the planet system stabilized. The visit had changed planet to a gas giant, several moons were damaged and additional Oort object orbited it.
The Oort planet had a new passenger along the journey towards the star. One of the eight planet’s moons had the same direction as the Oort planet. While it passed, it was hit very hard by a large Oort object. The impact left a crater with a diameter at 13,000 km and the moon got a kick start at the same speed as the hitting object. The eighth planet had to let its moon leave. The moon did not manage to rotate around the Oort planet though. The moon did not even manage to follow it for long. Finally, it simply sailed off in its own new course towards the star.
Lucie was stunned. This seems much more serious than I anticipated. Are you certain about this scenario of the 8th planet, she asked. Klype hesitated. Basically yes, he said. However, much is based on the present facts about the planet system and that the Oort planet actually had to pass its orbit. Considering the amounts of gas, the destroyed moons and, - yes something like this has probably happened several places. Lucie thought about it. She said I get the picture. It is enough of this for a while. Now I would like to know about life.
Can you make scenarios of them the terrestrial planets, Lucie asked? Klype hesitated. Sure I can, but the probabilities of the scenarios will be much lower. I mean, we know the planets were seeded and we know only one survived. In fact, I am uncertain about the planets’ properties. I can not make any sense about what’s recorded and what we see. Lucie was confused as well and rather sympatric. I suggest you start with the crystals collected from the original comets and simply make some historic scenarios strictly based on that. I can do that, Klype said, and started right away.