Are Mass Extinctions Periodic, And Are We Due For One?
“If we start looking at the craters we find on Earth and the geological composition of the sedimentary rock, however, the idea falls apart completely. Of all the impacts that occur on Earth, less than one quarter of them come from objects originating from the Oort cloud. Even worse, of the boundaries between geological timescales (Triassic/Jurassic, Jurassic/Cretaceous, or the Cretaceous/Paleogene boundary), and the geological records that correspond to extinction events, only the event from 65 million years ago shows the characteristic ash-and-dust layer that we associate with a major impact.”
65 million years ago, a catastrophic impact from outer space caused the last great mass extinction on Earth, destroying 30% of the species that lived on our world at the time. These mass extinction events happened many times in Earth’s past, and the Solar System also passes through denser stellar regions of space periodically, as determined by the orbit of the Sun and stars in the Milky Way. It’s a combination of facts that might make you wonder whether the extinction events are also periodic, and if so, whether periodic impacts are predictable. If so, then shouldn’t we be aware of whether we’re living in a time of increased risk, and prepare ourselves for that possibility accordingly? After all, the dinosaurs didn’t have a space program or the capability of deflecting a dangerous object like the one that wiped them out.
But before we go that route, we should take a good look at what the data shows. Are mass extinctions periodic? Are we due? Let’s find out!