The Sun is visiting biggest mass extinction zone in its orbit

During the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, 250,000,000 years ago our solar system was at this same point in our orbit around our galaxy. That was about the same time the Earth experienced its worst mass extinction known to Palaeoarchaeology. 90+% of all life on land and about 70% of life in the oceans died. I was speaking to Mike Benton a British palaeontologist, and professor of vertebrate palaeontology at the School of Earth Sciences about his authoritative book on this subject recently so that is why I was thinking about the subject.
Permian-Triassic mass extinction: www.sciencedaily.com...

Then today dawned on me that it takes our solar system the same 250,000,000 years to complete an orbit around our galaxy. This of course means we are at same point in our galactic orbit.
reference: : www.sciencedaily.com...
www.sciencefocus.com...

Our Sun is also close to its closest point to the center of the galaxy. We are now about 27,000 lightyears away from the galactic center, close to the perigalacticon.

Reference: astronomy.stackexchange.com...

This realization got me wondering if these 3 events are indeed related to each other in some way. If our solar system is now completing a orbit of our galaxy, and it is at perigalaciton or its closest approach to the galactic center, and this is also the same time place relatively in the same area of space as far as position within our galaxy as the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event then perhaps this area of our galaxy has some unknown and inherent dangers to life on Earth. This theory is half baked at best but there is just a lot to indicate that it bears investigation in my opinion.

what an alignment!

maybe Sol is helping Gaea shake off malevolent species before its too late?

www.newsweek.com...

Sep 10, 2019 · Scientists believe that the Earth is currently going through its sixth mass extinction event.

originally posted by: tulsi
what an alignment!

maybe Sol is helping Gaea shake off malevolent species before its too late?
www.newsweek.com...
Sep 10, 2019 · Scientists believe that the Earth is currently going through its sixth mass extinction event.

What is being extinguished exactly *with extreme prejudice* (no giant lizards to speak of or hideous human experiments running about).

a reply to: machineintelligence

It doesn't really matter if the sun is a hair closer to the center of the galaxy or not, at damn near 30k lightyears away it's not even close to the center

a reply to: cognizant420

It is a hair closer about 4,000 light years closer. What interests me is the time period alignment of the astronomical events with the Permian-Triassic mass extinction.

I would be scared #less if it would also coincide with the end of the current yuga.

Denovian extinction was 440 mya as well.
Which is also when the solar system was in this same spot.

The cryogenian period ended 660 mya, again same spot in our orbit around the galaxy, which was the end of the greatest ice age in history (snowball earth), something caused that ice age to end.

The orbit is around 220 million years and its seems that every 220 million years we get ‘events’ taking place.

This half baked theory of yours holds a little bit of water.

Its not the only one.

Taken today and not the moon.

a reply to: machineintelligence

Damn interesting information. I've wondered about that.

Perhaps that's why we're seeing these unexpected interstellar objects.

Maybe we should be paying closer attention to our space.

Star.

a reply to: Creep Thumper


I thought about that as well but did not venture there in the OP to keep it as science
oriented as possible, at least to start with.

a reply to: CthruU

Is that smog that is blocking the sun?

a reply to: machineintelligence

Ah who knows. We will see I suppose. Like the old ancient chinese saying or curse goes. May you live in interesting times.

I would not consider anything that has happened the past few million years interesting at all.

But I for one am at the least hoping that the zombie apocalypse happens at least once, before the global apocalypse happens and kills of all the zombies. Then maybe its time to give the cockroaches a give and go at it. I think as a species they can do great things.

a reply to: rickymouse

Cow Farts Bruh, Cow Farts.

Sounds more probable than man-made global warming.

a reply to: machineintelligence

What interests me is the time period alignment of the astronomical events with the Permian-Triassic mass extinction.

What alignment of events?

Does one event constitute a cycle? Or was there another major extinction 250 million years before the PT?

You know that other things in our galactic neighborhood are going around that circle too? At about the same rate (keeping in mind that there is some relative movement). Or do you think there's something that just sits in one place and we run into it on each lap?

a reply to: Breakthestreak

Denovian extinction was 440 mya as well.

No.

A major extinction, the Kellwasser event, occurred at the boundary that marks the beginning of the last phase of the Devonian period, the Famennian faunal stage, about 376–360 million years ago.

en.wikipedia.org...

And it doesn't seem to be very well defined at all.

Although it is clear that there was a massive loss of biodiversity in the Late Devonian, the timespan of this event is uncertain, with estimates ranging from 500,000 to 25 million years, extending from the mid-Givetian to the end-Famennian.

So what ever caused it, it took a very long time.

cryogenian period ended 660 mya,

Not really.

The Cryogenian is generally considered to be divisible into at least two major worldwide glaciations. The Sturtian glaciation persisted from 720 to 660 million years ago, and the Marinoan glaciation which ended approximately 635 Ma, at the end of the Cryogenian.

en.wikipedia.org...



There really doesn't seem be be much periodicity to extinction events.

The idea that mass extinctions are periodic is an interesting and compelling one, but the evidence simply isn’t there for it. The idea that the Sun’s passage through the galactic plane causes periodic impacts tells a great story, too, but again, there’s no evidence. In fact, we know that stars come within reach of the Oort cloud every half-million years or so, but we’re certainly well-spaced between those events at present. For the foreseeable future, the Earth isn’t at increased risk of a natural disaster coming from the Universe.

medium.com...

a reply to: machineintelligence
Keep in mind as well, that on its orbit around the center of the galaxy, the solar system follows a wave pattern, up and down to the ecliptic plane of the galaxy.
At the peaks of this wave, it is less within the accretion disc of the galaxy.
As it passes through it, it is more inundated with the likelihood of interaction with mass and energy from the accretion disc.
It is also closer when moving through the equatorial area of the disc, (albeit relatively small differential) to the center (black hole) than while at it's peaks of its waveform up and down cyclical pattern of movement around three galaxy's center.

a reply to: prevenge

That's a 65 million year cycle (we're on our way "up", left the region of the equator about 2 million years ago), and again, no cyclical events on Earth to coincide.
See my post above.

Extinctions seem to be quite random. Even if some people find comfort in the idea that they aren't.

a reply to: Phage

Oh.

I just read an article on the brief history of mass extinctions and then wrote that post.

It outlined a 220 m/y cycle of events like ice ages, changes in Gondwana, extinctions etc.

But you’re right. The transitions between one age and another span many many years.

As I was typing I was thinking “I bet that Hawaiian debunks this”

a reply to: Breakthestreak

I'm not Hawaiian.
I just live here.