No Influence of Passing Stars on Paleoclimate Reconstructions Over the Past 56 Million Years
Passing stars (also called stellar flybys) have notable effects on the solar system’s long-term dynamical evolution, injection of Oort cloud comets into the solar system, properties of trans-Neptunian objects, and more. Based on a simplified solar system model, omitting the Moon and the Sun’s quadru...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IOP Publishing
2025-01-01
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| Series: | The Astronomical Journal |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ade1d3 |
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| Summary: | Passing stars (also called stellar flybys) have notable effects on the solar system’s long-term dynamical evolution, injection of Oort cloud comets into the solar system, properties of trans-Neptunian objects, and more. Based on a simplified solar system model, omitting the Moon and the Sun’s quadrupole moment J _2 , it has recently been suggested that passing stars are also an important driver of paleoclimate before ∼50 Myr ago, including a climate event called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (∼56 Myr ago). In contrast, using a state-of-the-art solar system model, including a lunar contribution and J _2 , and random stellar parameters (>400 simulations), we find no influence of passing stars on paleoclimate reconstructions over the past 56 Myr. Even in an extreme flyby scenario in which the Sun-like star HD 7977 ( m = 1.07 M _⊙ ) would have passed within ∼3900 au about 2.8 Myr ago (with 5% likelihood), we detect no discernible change in Earth’s orbital evolution over the past 70 Myr, compared to our standard model. Our results indicate that a complete physics model is essential to accurately study the effects of stellar flybys on Earth’s orbital evolution. |
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| ISSN: | 1538-3881 |