Spiral arms: dangerous environment

1998/09/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronomia

Our Earth, along with the Sun, continuously revolves around a galaxy of millions and millions of stars. And it will continue like this, whenever it finds no obstacles in its path. There are obstacles, because in our galaxy there are gigantic high-density clouds composed of gases, powders and newborn stars, called “spiral arms”.

When crossing these arms, asteroid type objects cross the solar system and, having greater density of stars, large fields of gravitation are created that can cause an imbalance of the system. Therefore, life on Earth runs a total risk every 200 million years, when the solar system crosses one of these spiral arms.

Two American researchers have shown that the main disappearances of the Earth correspond to the crossing times of spiral arms. The fact that disappearances are cyclical has led researchers to this cause.