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Evolution of the Earth's obliquity for 5
Gyr in the future. In the background, the color gives the stability
of the spin axis of the Earth. Blue corresponds to stable motion,
and red to highly chaotic
behavior. The time from nom is given in Gyr on the left axis, and
the Earth obliquity (inclination of the equator on the orbital plane of the Earth)
is on the horizontal axis.
At present, the average obliquity of the Earth is 23.25 degrees, and the obliquity oscillates around
this value with 40 kyr periods and 1.3 degrees amplitude.
The black curves represent the limits of this oscillation.
As the times goes, du to tidal interactions in the Earth-Moon system,
the Earth rotation slows down and the Moon goes away at 3.8 cm/year.
The torque exerted on the equatorail bulge of the Earth thus
diminish, and the precession frequency of the Earht spin axis (on the left
axis of the figure) decreases. After about 1.5 Gyr,
the precession period of the Earth becomes comparable to the precession
periods of the orbital plane of the Earth, due to planetary perturbations.
The Earht then enters a large chaotic zone (in red) and
the spin axis wanders chaotically between 0 and more than 85 degrees.
As the motion is chaotic, a small difference will lead to a different solution,
but the genreral behavior depicted here will remain the same,
and there is no possibility for the Earth to avoid entering into
the zone of strong chaotic motion (in red)
(Laskar et al., 1993,
Laskar and Robutel, 1993,
Neron de Surgy and Laskar, 1997).
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If we had no Moon !
General audience paper published in "Pour la Science" in 1993
- Original version in french (april 1993)
- Translated version in english
Scientific papers published in Nature in 1993
- J. Laskar, F. Joutel, P. Robutel: Stabilization of the
Earth s obliquity by the Moon, Nature, 361, 615-617, February
18, 1993.
- J. Laskar, P. Robutel: The chaotic obliquity of the planets,
Nature, 361, 608-612, February 18, 1993.
Other related scientific papers
- O. Neron de Surgy and J. Laskar:
On the long term evolution of the spin of the Earth, Astron. Astrophys. 318, 975-989