The Solar System is not stick in place . It moves around the whitish Way . on occasion , it will cut across regions of denser interstellar medium . The wallop of these clouds of atomic number 1 and other materials on the Solar System and our planet is unclear , but it is possible that these encounters led to an Methedrine age .
“ This cloud was indeed in our past , and if we crossed something that massive , we were debunk to the interstellar medium , ” conscientious objector - writer and outer space physicist Merav Opher , from Boston University , suppose in astatementabout the former paper .
That is the crux of the outcome : that the interstellar swarm affected the bubble of plasma created by the Sun , the heliosphere . The Modern oeuvre suggests that the two encounter , first with the edge of the Local house of cards ( 7 million years ago ) and then with the Local Lynx of Cold Cloud ( 2 million age ago ) , bring a mess of spare hydrogen into the top of the atmospheric state .
This interstellar hydrogen , combined with the O in the atmosphere , would have shape water . The oxygen might have come from ozone causing localised depletion , in some cases of up to 99 per centum . And the presence of piddle in high abundance at high altitude might have created a peck morenoctilucent clouds , extremely rare wispy cloud locate at around 76 to 85 kilometers ( 249,000 to 279,000 groundwork ) .
These newly formed cloud would not be uncommon and wispy , but thick – and here comes the Southern Cross of the climate interrogation . The interstellar gas might have feign the upper standard pressure , but could it have cause anice age ? The response is currently uncertain . The mien of noctilucent clouds might have muse a bunch more sunlight , but they could have also trapped more heat from the ground . Other bring factors , such as cosmic ray increment and other phenomenon , might also have meant this did not cause a clear cooling or warming .
The team suggest that more detailed 3D atmospheric modeling could solve the mystery story , but it could be that the contribution is not so all the way - cut , and it might not be possible to identify evidence in the geologic platter that Earth and the Solar System did pass through these clouds .
The study is publish in theGeophysical Research Letters .
