Chaos in the Solar System

Abstract

The implications of the chaotic evolution of the Solar System are briefly reviewed, both for the orbital and rotational motion of the planets. In particular, Why Venus spins backward ? can be now understood while considering the transition through a highly chaotic state during its history; chaotic state that the Earth itself would have experienced in absence of the Moon, while the large variations of Mars' obliquity were probably at the origin of considerable climate variations that may have left some geological traces on its surface. The limits of predictability for a precise solution of the planetary orbits is an obstruction to the use of the astronomical insolation computations as an absolute geological time scale through paleoclimates reconstructions beyond a few tens of millions of years. On the opposite, as the paleoclimate geological records; increase in duration and quality, they may provide an ultimate constraint for the dynamical model of the Solar system.