Saturday, May 10, 2008

The Ride of Life

News from the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology

The Earth moves in many different patterns concurrently. It rotates on an axis, it wobbles its rotation on that axis, it revolves around the sun, it moves with the sun and its system of planets through space in the Milky Way galaxy, and moves with the galaxy's spinning and hurtling away from some and toward other galaxies.

In addition to those patterns, along with the solar system, the Earth bounces alternating bi-directionally through the plane of the galaxy. The denser parts of the galaxy's plane has huge gravitational masses that dislodge comets from their paths, some of which impact Earth. The bounce-throughs occur every 35-40 million years, in keeping with Earth's 36 million year interval of increased comet impacts. Several of Earth's mass extinctions coincide, too.

The researchers who "discovered", in a computational simulation, the bouncing solar system ride, speculate that the bombardments might strew some of Earth's microorganisms through the galaxy, perhaps seeding life elsewhere. Or introducing new life. Perhaps other solar systems do likewise. Imagine, a galactic-wide primordial soup! An alphabet soup spelling 'mother'.

See story at:

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/articles/did-the-solar-system-bounce-finish-the-dinosaurs.html

Did the solar system 'bounce' finish the dinosaurs?


No comments: