[Scientists] Solar system could go haywire long before the Sun dies

I know there are lots of 'End of the world' scenario's to be paranoid about but this is a new one for me (cant speak for everyone) yet quite obvious when you think about it.

I found it in New Scientist magazine at the end of last week and noticed that nobody here on ATS has disscussed it.

How will life on Earth end? The answer, of course, is unknown, but two new studies suggest a collision with Mercury or Mars could doom life long before the Sun swells into a red giant and bakes the planet to a crisp in about 5 billion years.
The studies suggest that the solar system's planets will continue to orbit the Sun stably for at least 40 million years. But after that, they show there is a small but not insignificant chance that things could go terribly awry.
On human timescales, the solar system seems to move as regularly as clockwork. But Isaac Newton realised three centuries ago that the gravitational tugs the planets exert on each other can potentially nudge them out of their orbits over time.
Predicting what will happen is extremely challenging because so many bodies are involved. Even small errors in the observed positions of the planets today can translate into huge uncertainties in projections of the future. Because of this, astronomers can only say for sure that the solar system will remain stable for the next 40 million years.

Surely if it could happen then, then it could happen now, right?

I am pretty sure that an event like this wont affect you or I but it does give another angle to the destruction of any life left in our solar system in the distant future.

Regards S_G

This scenario is not entirely out of the question at all.
With the planets orbiting as they are now, all is well, but remove just one and the balance is gone and would have a huge impact on every other planet. I am not saying that a collision is imminent, but to look at another prospect, if a large enough external body did make its way into the solar system and either destroy or chnage the orbit of one of the planets it could well happen sooner.

Please for the love of god do not turn this into a PX discussion, but the possibility of large asteroids is not unfeasable.

Originally posted by VIKINGANT
Please for the love of god do not turn this into a PX discussion, but the possibility of large asteroids is not unfeasable.

Agreed! We constantly worry about earth being affected by asteroids but I have never considered the possibility that another planet is affected by a heavenly body which in turn affects earth.