Earth’s changing biodiversity may be linked to solar system’s travel through Milky Way
DEC 23, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024930
Space.com : A puzzlingly regular waxing and waning of Earth’s biodiversity may ultimately trace back to our solar system’s bobbing path around the Milky Way, a new study suggests. Every 60 million years or so, two things happen, roughly in sync: The solar system peeks its head to the north of the average plane of our galaxy’s disk, and the richness of life on Earth dips noticeably. The new study lends credence to a hypothesis by earlier researchers that the former process drives the latter, via an increased exposure to high-energy subatomic particles called cosmic rays coming from intergalactic space. That radiation might be helping to kill off large swaths of the creatures on Earth, scientists say.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
