Posted on 05/02/2008 8:53:50 AM PDT by blam
Sun's Movement Through Milky Way Regularly Sends Comets Hurtling, Coinciding With Mass Life Extinctions
A large body of scientific evidence now exists that support the hypothesis that a major asteroid or comet impact occurred in the Caribbean region at the boundary of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods in Earth's geologic history. Such an impact is suspected to be responsible for the mass extinction of many floral and faunal species, including the large dinosaurs, that marked the end of the Cretaceous period. (Credit: Art by Don Davis / Courtesy of NASA)
ScienceDaily (May 2, 2008) — The sun's movement through the Milky Way regularly sends comets hurtling into the inner solar system -- coinciding with mass life extinctions on earth, a new study claims. The study suggests a link between comet bombardment and the movement through the galaxy.
Scientists at the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology built a computer model of our solar system's movement and found that it "bounces" up and down through the plane of the galaxy. As we pass through the densest part of the plane, gravitational forces from the surrounding giant gas and dust clouds dislodge comets from their paths. The comets plunge into the solar system, some of them colliding with the earth.
The Cardiff team found that we pass through the galactic plane every 35 to 40 million years, increasing the chances of a comet collision tenfold. Evidence from craters on Earth also suggests we suffer more collisions approximately 36 million years. Professor William Napier, of the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, said: "It's a beautiful match between what we see on the ground and what is expected from the galactic record."
The periods of comet bombardment also coincide with mass extinctions, such as that of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Our present position in the galaxy suggests we are now very close to another such period.
While the "bounce" effect may have been bad news for dinosaurs, it may also have helped life to spread. The scientists suggest the impact may have thrown debris containing micro-organisms out into space and across the universe.
Centre director Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe said: "This is a seminal paper which places the comet-life interaction on a firm basis, and shows a mechanism by which life can be dispersed on a galactic scale."
The paper, by Professor Napier and Dr Janaki Wickramasinghe, is to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Adapted from materials provided by Cardiff University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Catastrophism Ping.
I know I'm being picky, but there's an implication that the impact threw debris out of our solar system, out of our galaxy, and out across the universe. That's ... ah ... impressive. Snort.
All this supposed whirling around is making me nauseous.
Another opinion:
Munir Humayun, an associate professor in FSU’s Department of Geological Sciences and a researcher at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, co-authored a paper, “Partitioning of Palladium at High Pressures and Temperatures During Core Formation,” that was recently published in the peer-reviewed science journal Nature Geoscience.
The paper provides a direct challenge to the popular “late veneer hypothesis,” a theory which suggests that all of our water, as well as several so-called “iron-loving” elements, were added to the Earth late in its formation by impacts with icy comets, meteorites and other passing objects.
This is ‘science’
I’ve always suspected there are occasional mass bombardments like this, and it will be a bad day when it happens again.
Think of how fast the earth itself is rotating and you’ll puke.
Like it or not, we are all in God's hands.
2012, man....
Guillermo Gonzalez & Jay W Richards, The Privileged Planet: How Our Place In The Comos is Designed For Discovery
Strong on science. God more by implication.
That’s nice. Science is an illusion.
This needs to be passed on to Nancy Pelosi immediately so that legislation requiring human measures to stabilize the sun’s movement through the galaxy can be passed. The bulk of the human measures can be implemented by the wealthy countries because the poorer countries can’t afford to do it and the wealthy countries got their wealth by exploiting the poorer countries. We need to act now. The world can’t wait!
How do you tell the difference between a rotating earth and a rotating universe?
So is the way by which your sentance came to me.
“That’s nice. Science is an illusion.”
Sure it is. Go find a nuclear warhead, sit on it, and set it off. Enjoy the “illusion”.
Science is the least illusory of human endeavors. It is solely concerned with understanding how the “real world” works. Much of the rest of human activity is concerned with actively avoiding or denying those same realities.
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“How do you tell the difference between a rotating earth and a rotating universe?”
I usually start with Occam’s Razor... ;-)
Asteroids:
Deadly Impact
National Geographic
And how is a rotating earth simpler?
The Cycle of Cosmic Catastrophes:
Flood, Fire, and Famine
in the History of Civilization
by Richard Firestone,
Allen West, and
Simon Warwick-Smith
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