The change of seasons on Earth turned out to be an extremely unique phenomenon, and this is undoubtedly due to the peculiarities of its rotation around the Sun. Astrophysicist Gongjie Li of the Georgia Institute of Technology has found that a key factor that makes the Earth so special is the slight tilt of its rotation axis towards the vertical, which gives our planet a regular change of seasons.
Writes about this IFLScience.
On a perfectly aligned planet, where the axis of rotation coincides with the orientation of the orbit around the Sun, there would be no seasons. However, thanks to the 23-degree tilt from the vertical, different parts of the Earth receive different amounts of sunlight at different times of the year. This mechanism determines the change of seasons, making them predictable and stable.
A low axis tilt means an even distribution of sunlight along the equator, while a high tilt results in extremely hot or cold poles. Lee warns that if the tilt exceeds 54 degrees, it could lead to reverse zonation, where the equator is covered in ice and the pole becomes warm.
The study also looks at the influence of spin-orbit resonances, which can cause changes in the planet’s tilt. Using the example of Mars, whose axis of rotation fluctuates under the influence of the Moon’s rotation around the Earth, we understand that the stability of the inclination is important for the stability of the seasons.
In astronomy, with the emergence of thousands of exoplanets, scientists have turned their attention to Kepler-186f, a planet in the habitable zone. Lee’s research showed that the planet, like Earth, has a fixed tilt, which contributes to the stability of the seasons. This opens up interesting prospects for future research into what the seasons look like on other planets in the universe, and how habitable they might be.
Earlier, Cursor wrote that scientists have discovered new properties of water.
