Galactic Origin For 62M-Year Extinction Cycle?

Hugh Pickens writes "Cosmologist Adrian Mellott has an article in Seed Magazine discussing his search for the mechanism behind the mass extinctions in earth's history that seem to occur with a period of about 62 million years. Scientists have identified nearly 20 mass extinctions throughout the fossil record, including the end-Permian event about 250 million years ago that killed off about 95 percent of life on Earth. Mellott notes that as our solar system orbits the Milky Way's center, it oscillates through the galactic plane with a period of around 65 million years. 'The space between galaxies is not empty. It's actually full of rarefied hot gas,' says Mellott. 'As our galaxy falls into the Local Supercluster, it should disturb this gas and create a shock wave, like the bow shock of a jet plane,' generating cascades of high-energy subatomic particles and radiation called 'cosmic rays.' These effects could cause enhanced cloud formation and depletion of the ozone layer, killing off many small organisms at the base of the food chain and potentially leading to a population crash. So where is the earth now in the 62-million year extinction cycle? '[W]e are on the downside of biodiversity, a few million years from hitting bottom,' writes Mellott."

Comments

First Post

[portalcake625]

The real question is; and so what if we're gone?
Not as if there'll be an alien civilization to take over or give a frickin' damn.

What a f**king dick

[Maelwryth]

Those gas clouds are probably circulating at the same speed as us. Net speed zero. NTICBBRTFA (not that I can be bothered reading the f**king article). I mean, for Christ sakes. Couldn't it be that they had found 62 million years is the average time it takes a super duper virus to mutate. No, we have to be flying into some fucking cloud that just happens to be traveling at a speed in opposition to the rest of the galaxy.....in a few million years........I may have had a few glasses of wine tonight but there is no way I am going to fall for that.

What an f**king twit!