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Does Dark Matter Cause Mass Extinctions and Geologic Upheavals?

posted by n1 on Friday February 20 2015, @06:32AM   Printer-friendly
from the why-are-you-asking-me? dept.

AnonTechie writes:

Research by New York University Biology Professor Michael Rampino ( http://www.biology.as.nyu.edu/object/MichaelRampino.html ) concludes that Earth's infrequent but predictable path around and through our Galaxy's disc may have a direct and significant effect on geological and biological phenomena occurring on Earth. In a new paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, he concludes that movement through dark matter may perturb the orbits of comets and lead to additional heating in the Earth's core, both of which could be connected with mass extinction events.

The Galactic disc is the region of the Milky Way Galaxy where our solar system resides. It is crowded with stars and clouds of gas and dust, and also a concentration of elusive dark matter--small subatomic particles that can be detected only by their gravitational effects.

Previous studies have shown that Earth rotates around the disc-shaped Galaxy once every 250 million years. But the Earth's path around the Galaxy is wavy, with the Sun and planets weaving through the crowded disc approximately every 30 million years. Analyzing the pattern of the Earth's passes through the Galactic disc, Rampino notes that these disc passages seem to correlate with times of comet impacts and mass extinctions of life. The famous comet strike 66 million ago that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs is just one example.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-02/nyu-ddm021815.php

[Also Covered By]: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/dinosaurs/11422695/Dark-matter-may-have-killed-the-dinosaurs-claims-scientist.html

 
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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by q.kontinuum on Friday February 20 2015, @09:15AM

    by q.kontinuum (532) on Friday February 20 2015, @09:15AM (#147342) Journal

    If you are knowledgeable about such topics, volunteer as an author. Soylentnews can probably still need some.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Friday February 20 2015, @10:23AM

    by janrinok (52) on Friday February 20 2015, @10:23AM (#147353) Journal

    Well said! I list my interest/experience as:

    Programming experience: Real-time avionic systems, Algol, CORAL66, C, C++, Python. For fun: Computing and technology. I also play guitar, banjo and tin whistle.

    I don't think I put 'Dark Matter' in there - nor has any other editor and, yes, I have checked!

  • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday February 20 2015, @04:18PM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Friday February 20 2015, @04:18PM (#147458) Journal

    Yeah I would second this. SN has a stable core now, but it still needs building. The more knowledgeable volunteers who chip in, the more knowledgeable volunteers will join them. The awesome thing about contributing energy here is that you are judged solely on your contributions, unclouded and unfiltered (mostly) by your religion, race, politics, social context, etc.

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