How Passing Stars Affect Earth's Orbit And Change Its Climate

For centuries, it has been believed that apart from the position of the planets, even stars have an impact on humans. Now, a recent study by scientists has found that apart from the Sun, the other stars can also have a great impact on Earth and may even change its orbit. They claim that the gravitational pull of the stars can change the orbit of the Earth, which can unfortunately cause havoc on the planet’s climate.

A study titled Passing Stars as an Important Driver of Paleoclimate and the Solar System’s Orbital Evolution, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters led by Sean Raymond and Nathan A Kaib claimed that when stars passed by our solar system millions of years ago, the temperature of Earth witnessed an increase in temperature by 8 degrees Celsius.

Nathan A Kaib, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, explained that the changes in a celestial body’s path are due to the gravitational pull of other celestial objects like passing stars. These disturbances influence the orbital movements of the planets in the solar system, including Earth around the sun, which will affect the climate.

The geological record of Earth shows that changes in the orbit of our planet have resulted in the change of climate. If one wants to find out previous climate anomalies, it is important to know what the orbit of the Earth looked like during that time. Scientists carried out extensive research to understand the events which occurred billions of years ago on Earth and its orbit by running simulations to predict past orbital evolution. The scientists chose the event which took place 2.8 million years ago when a Sun-like star named HD 7977 passed through the solar system.

The star passed through the Oort Cloud which was at a distance of around 31,000 astronomical units (where 1 astronomical unit is the distance between Earth and the Sun). The distance was too far to have any kind of effect. However, upon closer observation, it was found that HD 7977 might have zoomed in as close as 4,000 astronomical units. This could have had a major impact on the Earth.

Nathan A Kaid claimed that whenever there was a change in the Earth’s orbit, it was because of a passing star which made detailed predictions of Earth’s past orbital evolution.