About a century ago, mathematician Milutin Milanković wrote about astronomical processes that cause cyclical climate changes. Now evidence has been found that Jupiter and Venus have been influencing our climate since the early dinosaur era, write American geologists in the journal PNAS.
Climate Change On Earth Caused By Jupiter And Venus
Jupiter and Venus are more than bright lights in the night sky, their effect on the orbit of the earth has been responsible for climate change on our planet for at least 215 million years.
Venus
Climate On Earth Gets Influenced By Jupiter And Venus For At Least 215 Million Years
Venus is the second planet from the Sun and is the second largest terrestrial planet. Venus is sometimes referred to as the Earth’s sister planet due to their similar size and mass. Venus is named after the Roman goddess of love and beauty.
Facts about Venus
- Venus does not have any moons or rings
- Venus is nearly as big as the Earth with a diameter of 12,104 km
- Venus is thought to be made up of a central iron core, rocky mantle and silicate crust
- A day on the surface of Venus (solar day) would appear to take 117 Earth days
- A year on Venus takes 225 Earth days
- The surface temperature on Venus can reach 471 °C.
Almost a century ago, the Serbian mathematician Milutin Milanković predicted long, rhythmic changes in the climate caused by fluctuations in the movement of the earth around the sun. Now a team of American geologists has found 215 million years of evidence for one of those climate cycles. This can help us better understand the history of the earth and that of the solar system.
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The cycle in question is caused by the gravitational force of the great gas giant Jupiter and our neighboring planet Venus on the earth. They make sure that the orbit in which the earth revolves around the sun is sometimes more outrageous than usual. On a human scale, we notice almost nothing of that change - one cycle from most elliptical to most round and back takes 405,000 years - but this is very interesting for geologists and astrophysicists.
What causes Milankovitch cycles?
These cycles are caused by changes in the earth's orbit around the sun, like its shape or eccentricity, its precession or wobble, and the tilt of its axis or obliquity. Each of these have a different effect on how much of the sun's energy reaches the earth and when the strongest sunlight occurs.
Jupiter
Climate Chance & Rocket Science
Although we have known the cycle for a long time, it was not yet certain that he was always so stable. The mathematical model of this cycle - based on movements of the celestial bodies - is, according to astrophysicists, reliable until 'only' 50 million years ago.
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"We basically use the same math’s as those with which we send space probes to Mars, and okay, that works," says researcher Paul Olsen of Columbia University in New York. But moving these movements back millions of years and connecting climate change there is something we have not yet fully figured out. The retrieval of such a cycle in old rock layers can help to pull apart the tangle of astronomical movements.
A fresh core contains red-colored sediments deposited more than 200 million years ago.
The final evidence came from drill cores: pieces of stone that were taken up from the ground with hollow tubes. Those stones came from more than 450 meters underground in the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona and out of rocks that had previously been mined in New York and New Jersey. In those last nuclei the cycle was already visible, but it could not yet be proven that they actually lasted 405,000 years.
What is the oldest ice core sample?
Scientists smashed the previous record for the oldest ice core in the world, collecting an ice core that dates back 2.7 million years ago. This is compared to one of the oldest ice cores which extends back 800,000 years, the Antarctic Dome C ice core
The Arizona cores provide that evidence, because layers of volcanic ash between the deposits contain radioactive isotopes. Because those isotopes decay in a very predictable way, you can calculate how old the layers are. These ages allowed the researchers to extrapolate to the other centers, with which they could prove that they really had found a cycle of 405,000 years.
Climate Change On Earth: The Evolution Of The Powerful Dinosaurs
Photo by: Travis Tischler. Artist’s depiction of Savannasaurus elliottorum based on fossil remains
The cycle now found has two brothers caused by changes in the orientation of the earth's axis. Those last two cycles, which last 'only' twenty and forty thousand years, are less stable and often more difficult to distinguish. 'The beauty of the 405,000-year cycle is that it is separate from the rest', says researcher Dennis Kent. "He does not change. The other cycles move over these."
We Discovered That Jupiter and Venus Influence Earth's Climate
Climate Change On Earth Caused By Jupiter And Venus
The Milankovitch cycles are a sort of yardstick for geologists for time: a worldwide system of alternations that always take about the same length of time. Regular changes in climate can be found in sedimentary deposits in various places. This allows you to link something that happened a long time ago to another event that took place somewhere else at the same time.
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For example, the discovery of this cycle can help us better understand the rise of the dinosaurs - more than two hundred million years ago, the researchers write. With the help of the cycle, you can place the evolution of these powerful beasts and the changes that took place in their environment very precisely in the right time and compare them all over the world.
Cover photo by: JAXA/Akihiro Ikeshita. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency had decided the schedule for the Venus Climate Orbiter “AKATSUKI” to be injected into the Venus orbit in the winter in 2015.
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