Scientists have stated that stars other than the Sun in our solar system can have a significant impact on planets such as Earth, perhaps modifying their orbits. The gravitational attraction of the stars can alter the Earth’s orbit, which can have disastrous consequences for the green planet’s environment.
The orbital shifts occurred millions of years ago. According to the study titled ‘Passing Stars as an Important Driver of Paleoclimate and the Solar System’s Orbital Evolution’, this caused the Earth’s temperature to rise by 8 degrees Celsius. The study was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The study’s principal researchers are Sean Raymond and Nathan A Kaib. Perturbations are minor deviations in the course of a celestial body caused by the gravitational attraction of a neighboring body from passing stars. They alter the long-term orbital evolution of the sun’s planets, including Earth, according to Kaib, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute.
“One reason this is important is because the geologic record shows that changes in the Earth’s orbital eccentricity accompany fluctuations in the Earth’s climate. If we want to best search for the causes of ancient climate anomalies, it is important to have an idea of what Earth’s orbit looked like during those episodes,” he said.
Scientists predict Earth’s previous orbital evolution
The experts conducted considerable scientific research to better understand the events that transpired across Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history. They used models to forecast the planet’s previous orbital development. The scientists then chose a single known event: 2.8 million years ago, a Sun-like star known as HD 7977 traveled through the Solar System.
The star traveled through the Oort Cloud at a distance of around 31,000 astronomical units (1 astronomical unit equals the distance between Earth and the Sun). As a result, it was too far away to be effective. However, it might have zoomed in as much as 4,000 astronomical units.
“It has already been proposed that Earth’s orbital eccentricity was notably high during this event, but our results show that passing stars make detailed predictions of Earth’s past orbital evolution at this time highly uncertain, and a broader spectrum of orbital behavior is possible than previously thought,” said Kaib.