Passing stars changed Earth's orbit by chance million years ago

A new study reveals that the Sun and other passing stars orbit the center of the Milky Way might have changed Earth’s orbit a million years ago. Scientists found proof for the first time that Earth’s orbit or present path around the Sun changed over time.

In the past, things were different. This change in orbit was due to other suns that might have passed around the Solar System in the past times. Nathan A. Kaib, a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute, led this research. He discovered climate changes caused the changes in the present path of Earth’s orbit.

According to Nathan, if they want to search for the causes of ancient climate anomalies, it is significant to have an idea of what Earth’s orbit looked like during those episodes.

The research published in Astrophysical Journal Letters that one such event occurred 56 million years ago when Earth’s temperature increased by 5-8 degrees Celcius.

According to scientists, as the Sun and other stars orbit the center of the Milky Way, they will ultimately get close to one another with tens of thousands of AU. AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun. These events are known as stellar encounters.

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However, Scientists suggest that a star passes within 50,000 AU of the Sun every 1 million years. And within 10,000 AU of the Sun every 20 million years on average. The study research also highlighted Jupiter changes Earth’s orbit due to regular disturbances from our Solar System’s large planets.

As stars travel close to our Solar System, they have an initial impact on massive planets. They hit big planets such as Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. Then, they hit Earth, which is like a link in the chain.

Nathan stated they have found a recently discovered stellar passage of Sun-like star HD 7977 2.8 million years ago. It might be strong enough to change Earth’s orbit more than 50 million years ago. It shows that passing stars changed the present path of Earth’s orbit.