sci fi prompt
Hidden in the dark recesses of the Oort cloud, beyond the Kuiper Belt, far beyond Pluto and Neptune... a hidden, frozen, invisible planetary-sized phantom lurks, on a chaotic orbit that takes it through the inner solar system once every few dozen million years.
Spotted by a now famous scientist, this new giant frozen planet begins to enter visual range, its dangerous orbit fully apparent.
To pose a threat to Earth it wouldn’t even have to collide with us, it may just need to get close enough to change our planet’s orbit, maybe even just a little bit, onto a dangerous new trajectory.
Even the “Three Body Problem” is basically as unsolvable as quantum physics, so try the 10-plus-body problem of predicting its incoming trajectory through the orbiting outer planets. If Jupiter is in position, it stands to completely redirect the incoming planet’s orbit onto an array of possible new trajectories that could be altered greatly by even slight interactions with outer gas giants like Neptune or Uranus. How might the Earth fare in this round of planetary billiards?
