What happens if one planet in the solar system is destroyed?

Answer 1

Then most likely we would be destroyed since we live on Earth and Earth is in our solar system. But there is a very slight chance of that happening. __________________ I'm skeptical of the first response. If the minor planet Pluto were destroyed, I think it might be some time before anyone would even notice, unless large enough chunks of the destroyed body posed a threat to us. It would depend on the planet and the cause of destruction to a great extent. The inner rocky planets might be visited by a very large body, or rogue planet, and depending on its course there might be significant amounts of debris that could pose serious threats to earth. One likely theory is that our moon was formed as an after-effect of such a collision. Fortunately, this unimaginably catastrophic collision happened when earth was mostly molten rock. On the other hand, it's hard to imagine what exactly would cause the destruction of the gas giant Jupiter. Whatever collides with it just moves on in. Anything seriously distrupting Jupiter's coherence would probably cause only a temporary spreading of Jupiter's gases. Eventually they would all come together again. The same would probably be true of all the gas/ice giants. The planets do react to each others' gravity, though, and the perturbations of planetary orbits would be affected by the destruction of a planet, or the serious distribution of a planet's matter along its orbit.

Answer 2

If a planet in our solar system were to be destroyed, it would have significant consequences depending on the planet. For example, if Earth were destroyed, it would have catastrophic effects on life as we know it. If a smaller planet like Mercury were destroyed, the impact would be less severe but could still affect the balance of the solar system.