Researchers suggest that Earth could be in great peril as the sun's journey through the galaxy emits comet and sends them flying to neighbouring planets. Apparently, scientists have identified a 26 million year cycle of meteor impacts evidences that coincides with the exact time of the mass extinction over the past 260 million years ago.
The apocalyptic events are connected to the sun and other planetary motion in the mid plane of the Milky Way. The gravitational disturbance of the Oort Cloud (a shell in the outer lining of the solar system), is believed to lead an array of comet showers pouring into the sector in which Earth is currently located.
The last recorded event that is the same with this situation happened about 11 million years ago at the same time of Middle Miocene mass extinction. "It might be wrong to assume that we are living in a completely safe time and millions of years away from the dangerous period," Professor Michael Rampino a New York University geologist said. "There are evidences that the comet activity has been occurring at an alarming rate for the last one to two million years" so the Earth is actually experiencing shower at the present time that he based on his theories.
The group performed time series analysis of impacts and extinction using newly acquired data that gives more accurate age estimates in order to test the hypothesis of the scientists involved in the study. They also added that five out of the six largest impact craters was linked to mass extinction events of the last 260 million years on Earth.
"The cosmic cycle of death and total destruction has without a doubt affected the history of life in our planet," Rampino noted. The paper Co authored by Rampino and Ken Caldeira, a scientist in Carnegie Institution's Global ecology department appeared in the journal monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
