It turns out the Earth is also subject to gravity, which was a problem. //

Zharkova engaged in a spirited back-and-forth with Rice that generated more heat than light. Both agreed that the Sun is known to wobble around the precise gravitational balance point of the Solar System, pulled slightly off its mark by the attraction of the larger planets like Jupiter and Saturn. But the study seemed to ignore the fact that the Earth’s orbit also shifts in response to those giant planets, causing it to maintain a constant distance from the Sun. The paper instead assumed that Earth’s orbit was unaffected so that any motion of the Sun would alter its distance from the Earth. If that’s not true, then there has been no change in the strength of sunlight reaching the Earth, and there is no mechanism for their centuries-long warming trend.

As several people tried in vain to point out that this constant Earth-Sun relationship is well-known, Zharkova posted, “Oh dear, You suggest that the Earth does follow in its orbit this solar inertial motion? And its orbit is not stable? You have to have a very vivid imagination assuming that the Earth moves like a drunken men...[sic]”

At one point, after Rice provided a simple orbital simulation calculating the gravitational interactions in the Solar System, Zharkova replied, “Your simulations are extremely biased by the idea you believe in.” //

On Wednesday, Scientific Reports—for which Zharkova is listed as an editor, by the way—formally retracted the paper. The retraction note states that “concerns were raised regarding the interpretation of how the Earth-Sun distance changes over time and that some of the assumptions on which analyses presented in the Article are based are incorrect.” One of the paper’s four authors apparently agreed to retract the paper, while the other three (Zharkova among them) objected.