Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Regardless, the stars that make up the spiral arms of our Galaxy, which revolve around the center of the Milky Way like the spokes of a huge cosmic wheel, can from time to time approach each other at such a distance that gravitational disturbance can cause changes in the orbits of the planets of the star in which it is located. Planets too. “This is important because geohistorical evidence shows that eccentricities of the Earth's orbit cause anomalies in the atmosphere and weather, which is why it will be important to know the Earth's orbit during such oscillations,” says one of the study's authors, Nathan Cape. , from a researcher at the Planetary Science Institute.
Extreme global warming may have cosmic causes
According to Cape and colleagues' modeling, if we go back in time, we can show a relationship between close encounters of stars calculated by the model and changes in the Earth's climate. Measured on the geohistorical time scale, one of the most extreme periods of warming in the recent geological past was an anomaly that formed 55 million years ago, on the boundary of the Paleocene and Eocene, the so-called Paleocene Climatic Optimum.
