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How Nearby Supernovae Affected Life On Earth
sycodon writes with news of research into how nearby supernovae affected the development of life on Earth. "[Professor Henrik Svensmark] found that the changing frequency of nearby supernovae seems to have strongly shaped the conditions for life on Earth. Whenever the Sun and its planets have visited regions of enhanced star formation in the Milky Way Galaxy, where exploding stars are most common, life has prospered. Prof. Svensmark remarks in the paper, "The biosphere seems to contain a reflection of the sky, in that the evolution of life mirrors the evolution of the Galaxy.' ... The data also support the idea of a long-term link between cosmic rays and climate, with these climatic changes underlying the biological effects. And compared with the temperature variations seen on short timescales as a consequence of the Sun's influence on the influx of cosmic rays, the heating and cooling of the Earth due to cosmic rays varying with the prevailing supernova rate have been far larger.""
Didn't I see this in the last episode of The Next Generation? Where life on earth was helped by a supernova which Q eventually had removed from existence?
Considering the majority of matter on the planet, including life, is from the remnants of a supernova, I'd say it helped quite a lot.
"Aww...it didn't happen. See what you've done?"
>Whenever the Sun and its planets have visited regions of enhanced star formation in the Milky Way Galaxy, where exploding stars are most common, life has prospered.
Nothing like repeated blasts of high-energy gamma radiation to stir things up.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Trying to make sense of this:
And compared with the temperature variations seen on short timescales as a consequence of the Sun's influence on the influx of cosmic rays, the heating and cooling of the Earth due to cosmic rays varying with the prevailing supernova rate have been far larger
Is this a correct translation?
"The influence of supernovae on cosmic rays is greater than the sun's influence on the cosmic rays"
correlate with supernovae rate? This is a interesting analysis and paper, although I think it is hard to draw the distinction when only two (or three, if you count bacteria over all time) clades have actually 'dominated' the earth, reptiles and mammals. I don't know enough about classification to also include the oceans, but it is my understanding that they contain relatively low biomass other than microorganisms. I guess you could consider some sort of insect or arthropod for both, but those have dominated fairly consistently with bacteria as far as I know.
Koalas. They're telepathic. Plus, they control the weather. -Margaret
life creating kaboom?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
in the 90s she was goddess of all geeks
This ain't the 90s anymore, gramps.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
For those who understand plasma universe theory already, this makes perfect sense. The energy output of the sun is tied to the electric field strength of the surrounding galactic neighborhood, which fluctuates over time. The energy output of the sun has huge impacts on historical biodiversity and how well the biosphere thrives. Supernovae are events caused (at least in part) by stars exceeding their surface output capacity and blowing off their outer charged layer or dividing into smaller stars, which happens when the electric differential is higher than previously.
The fact that a correlation has been found between nearby supernovae and a highly sucessful biosphere on Earth is excellent news. It helps prove that solar output is tied to events outside our solar system, in our galactic neighborhood. Fascinating stuff.
(For those of you who haven't been convinced of the validity of the plasma universe theory, you are behind the times and need to get cracking. Be a scientist and stop supporting the dead Big Bang theory.)
--Jaborandy
It's just more denialist propaganda!
How does a supernova cool the atmosphere? Does it affect the sun? The Van Alan belt? Does it cause a sudden massive die off in micro-organisms that rebounds a few years later?
The article is neat, but doesn't go into detail about that process. Anyone with a clue want to try and illuminate me?
The nearest I can tell is it works in conjunction with the sun, and plate tectonics to cool the atmosphere. Either through volcanic gasses, or shifts in the mass of the mantle, creating different sea levels.
The energy output of the sun is tied to the electric field strength of the surrounding galactic neighborhood, which fluctuates over time.
Indeed. I'm working on a unification for Electric Universe Theory and Time Cube Theory, which, if I can pull it off, should make me the Crank of the Century.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In the new work, the diversity of life over the last 500 million years seems remarkably well explained by tectonics affecting the sea-level together with variations in the supernova rate, and virtually nothing else.
I'm guessing that if he were to factor in the rate of meteor impacts, the beating of butterfly wings would turn out to be a driver of evolution too.
Those younger than forty will probably live to see the fall of the Big Bang Theory.
Remember this mocking when that time comes. You'll have plenty of company in your camp of people who didn't see it coming, but you'll forever lose your geek cred when you find that you've been the flat-earther, mocking the true scientists who based their theories on observations, not mathematical models.
When these things go off, wise men and kings go hunting for babies to garnish with bling.
Gently reply
Possibly, but it's certainly not going to be the electric universe "theory" that replaces it.
Svensmark is the scientist whose controversial ideas ultimately led CERN to conduct its CLOUD experiment. The gist of his idea was: cosmic particle presence (more clouds, due to more substrate) and solar magnetic activity (less clouds, due to repelled particles) are amongst the driving factors --perhaps the primary one-- of climate volatility on Earth, because they control overall cloud cover.
CERN's conclusion? Svensmark was basically spot on with respect to cloud formation.
Make no mistake here. Clouds excersice materially high positive and negative feedback loops on climate. Whether it is overwhelmingly superior or merely predominant to carbon dioxide et al is the only point of contention.
In light of this, is any Slashdot reader surprised that proximity of supernovae, aka amount of cosmic particles, accepting the evidence that the latter have an impact on cloud cover and thus on climate, might have an impact on how life in thriving on Earth?
Let's see, on the one hand I have the opinion that almost every cosmologist holds, and the other I have the opinion of a Slashdotter.
I'm really torn on this one.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Oh noes! Human CO2 causes supernovas!!! I'm super cereal!
(yes, yes, mod me troll/flamebait)
But Neo affected the machines "outside" the Matrix, so that proves it's just another encapsulating Matrix.
"If you believe in Science"
Not only does my tribe "believe in Science", we also fight for peace and fornicate for chastity.
But our reality distortion does not stretch so far as betting some third party lipstick yet to come will make this scientific spam into Miss Universe.
According to the graphs, we are currently on an uptick. Does that mean I'll grow a second wanker?
Table-ized A.I.
While its great that the pieces are coming together in the bigger puzzle of how things work in our world and universe, I know some nuts are going to use this to explain away the part that our actions play on the climate.
Effective immediately Al Gore is announcing a SuperNova Credits Exchange!
Taxes paid by every man women and child will stop the SuperNova's climate change effects!
It is illegal not to pay.
So you better not cheat on your SuperNova taxes or we will take away your Passport.
Oh yeah, we got ya covered.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
If research scientists would stop cherry picking their data it would probably help the rest of us. Using the same astronomical model - the earth passing through the galactic plane - has also been used to explain most of the mass extinction events on the planet.
Sometimes specialization causes worse effects than Adam Smith could have foreseen.
Well, i for one, will at least wait to see his final mod score before i take sides!
although, you do have a lower UID then him
now I am torn.
The odds are 10,000 to 1 against this unexpected link between cosmic rays and the variable state of the biosphere being just a coincidence, and it offers a new perspective on the connection between the evolution of the Milky Way and the entire history of life over the last 4 billion years,’ Dr Svensmark comments.
So I Googled it and found this article containing a refutation and further examples of over-reaching. I leave it to /. to comment on the accuracy of these links.
Destruction and creation are the same thing? Or perhaps there is no destruction only creation.
In related news:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/correlation-or-causation-12012011-gfx.html
Those younger than forty will probably live to see the fall of the Big Bang Theory.
Even if it turns out that many phenomena have electric-plasma origins, I don't think the most basic premise of the big bang is going to go away. Red-shifted galaxies provide strong evidence that galaxies have been moving away, and if you rewind the process you're left with a big bang.
Unless our understanding of the red-shift incorrect as well...
120 characters ought to be enough for anyone
Well, i for one, will at least wait to see his final mod score before i take sides!
although, you do have a lower UID then him
now I am torn.
It's a well-known fact that you can use the ratio of two people's UIDs to determine the probability of who's right.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Hey, be fair. It's a Slashdotter backed up by a half dozen or so cranks.
Those younger than forty will probably live to see the fall of the Big Bang Theory.
Well, sure. If you look at the list of longest-running TV shows by category, it looks like Meet The Press, which started in 1947, has been on the longest. If The Big Bang Theory were to run for the same length of time, someone who's 40 now would have to live to be just over 100 to see it end its run. That's plausible, assuming humanity doesn't do something to wipe itself out in the meantime. But somehow I don't think it's going to run for 60+ years.
http://www.ann-geophys.net/30/9/2012/angeo-30-9-2012.pdf
Ann. Geophys., 30, 9–19, 2012
www.ann-geophys.net/30/9/2012/
doi:10.5194/angeo-30-9-2012
Cosmic rays and space weather: effects on global climate change
Regions with more radiation generate more mutations, allowing for faster exploring of the evolutionary gradient descent space. Interesting observation that this influence is not static.
BTW this is similar to "simulated annealing", a technique to help an organism trapped in a local minimum escape the well so it can find a deeper one.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
That's what the article says... right?
The stars DO affect our lives! Hahahah!
Electric Universe?!! I wouldn't even do Electric Avenue!
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
How about the Electric Slide?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Yeah, I'm not convinced that's accurate. It's a logic thing.
We know:
1 - Red shift is observed in proportion to distance
2 - Relative velocity (away from us) causes red shift
Based on these two facts, it cannot be proven that relative velocity depends on distance. That's why it's just a theory.
Relative motion is one possible cause of the observed red shift, but that does not mean it is the only possible cause. I think it is more likely that light loses energy in some form over thousands of years, and this energy loss is reflected as a red shift. This is perfectly consistent with observations, is simple, is consistent with every other physical process in nature (which cannot in general maintain perfect energy conservation over infinite time periods), and has the unfortunate side effect of causing a complete re-evaluation of everything we think we know about the universe.
Critique of tired light: http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/tiredlit.htm
It's possible that the big bang theory has it wrong about galactic redshift, but that seems more like wishful thinking than observational data.