[marsissippi]

Great short article. Takeaway: because of ancient star flybys

"the uncertainties of Earth’s past orbit make it difficult to be confident more than 50 million years. And that has a significant impact on paleoclimate studies."

[jvanderbot]

That's actually fascinating! Among other things passing stars can do, I imagine, is knock comets out of the Ort cloud? So speaking of dinosaurs...

[marsissippi]

Lisa Randall's book "Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs" has that vibe (not about passing stars, but about the solar system passing through an area of the galaxy thick with dark matter - but the imagined impact is the same).

[vardump]

Maybe dinosaurs jumped to another star that time and arranged some fireworks to ensure no one will follow?

[hinkley]

The butterfly effect, where the 'butterfly' is a stellar object.