ANANTA Magazine September 2014 | Page 21

Precession Aside from the tilt, the axis also wobbles like a top. A complete wobble cycle is more or less 26,000 years. This motion is caused by tidal forces from the Sun and Moon.As a result of this, the pole star of the Earth changes every 26,00 years.It is estimated that after about 11,700 years from now, our pole star will be a blue-white star 'Vega'!!! The Milankovitch Cycles are among the arguments fielded by detractors of the Global Warming concept. According to them, the Earth’s current warming is just a part of a series of cyclical events that take thousands of years to complete, and hence cannot be prevented. Credit: "Precession and seasons" (Wikimedia Commons) As a result of the Milankovitch cycle, every 11000 years, the sequence of season changes.