Their research waspublishedtoday in Nature Astronomy.
The Pleistocene began about 2.6 million years ago.
The moment Earth and the other planets moved away from the cloud, the heliosphere returned.
A cold molecular cloud, as seen by the Webb Space Telescope.Image:NASA, ESA, CSA, and M. Zamani (ESA)
According to the Utah Geological Survey, at leastfive major ice ages have occurred on Earth.
The first occurred over 2 billion years ago and the most recent began around 3 million years ago.
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The team’s model showing the heliosophere 44 years into the simulation, shrunk to just .22 au.Graphic:Opher et al., Nature Astronomy 2024
