The paper, linked, https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ad24fb, does go into the chaotic behavior and why it's all kinda sorta made up.
What is uncertain is only which were the changes, i.e. which were the orbits of the planets prior to the star passing.
The changes must have been very small, but they must have existed.
The point of the paper is that this stellar passing and others like it increase by a non-negligible amount the uncertainty of the simulations that attempt to determine accurately the planetary movements in the distant past of the Solar System, at scales of tens of millions of years.
The star HD 7977 is slightly bigger and brighter than the Sun, so when it has passed at the minimum distance there are chances that it was noticeably brighter than Venus.
The problem is, as the paid readers fall, they are forced to use clickbait titles to attract more on line readers to click ads. Imagine a newspaper founded in 1831, using titles like, "You will never guess what she said next" as a main headline.
The same here, who is going to click on "Passing stars may affect the orbits of our planets"? They know exactly what they are doing and it's not about the scientifically literate.
I understand that real journalism must be paid for, but allowing megacorps to buy up all maintream media was a huge mistake and now they are all corporate mouthpieces.
I don't know what the answer is, but trusting 'journalists' of today is not it.
The head of journalism at my college warned us of this over a decade ago, and he didn't have the answer either. They lost their ethics in search of clicks and clout and cry foul when they aren't believed. They use divisive language, outright lie, holy crap this election cycle will be a shitshow. There's no unbiased truth finders anymore.
The ones I feel sorry for are the real journalists drowned out by the fake.
Some are, some aren't. Just like some programmers are real programmers and others are not, and some managers are real managers and others are not. The world is full of posers but that doesn't mean there aren't people that hold the title + the ethics that come with it dear. They're a minority, but they've always been a minority, that didn't change at all.
> Public trust in media is at an all-time low for a reason.
It mostly is because there are well funded political groups that incessantly undermine the public trust in the media. Because the last thing they want is for their deeds to be properly exposed and investigated.
> I understand that real journalism must be paid for, but allowing megacorps to buy up all maintream media was a huge mistake and now they are all corporate mouthpieces.
> I don't know what the answer is, but trusting 'journalists' of today is not it.
Well, one thing that could be done is to seriously limit ownership of media by global empires. The likes of Murdoch have done untold damage to the world in the pursuit of some green paper.
> The head of journalism at my college warned us of this over a decade ago, and he didn't have the answer either.
Yes, it is a problem. And given the cost of good investigative journalism it is in fact unbelievable that there are still people doing this because they see it as their calling. And I'm mighty impressed with that and do not accept the broad brush with which they too are being painted. In every country you can find journalists that operate with integrity and that are not to be muzzled by corporate interests. They're real heroes too because in plenty of places that will get you ostracized, beaten up, blacklisted or murdered.
> They lost their ethics in search of clicks and clout and cry foul when they aren't believed.
Some. Not all.
> They use divisive language, outright lie, holy crap this election cycle will be a shitshow. There's no unbiased truth finders anymore.
There are, just not all that many, but they do exist.
> The ones I feel sorry for are the real journalists drowned out by the fake.
So, it seems we agree they exist. My solution is pretty simple, I seek out the journalists whose work I trust and I try to get my information about country A from any source except the ones in country A because they likely will not be objective. That's a hack and a workaround but it seems to work quite well.
The problem is that poor journalism influences the masses. And in a democracy, the masses' opinion is assigned a higher decision-making weight than is the opinion of the informed minority.