Large comets are more dangerous than asteroids and could cause the death of life on Earth anytime. This is especially true since hundreds of comets (giant) have been found in outer planets over the last twenty-years. The Royal Astronomy Society journal Astronomy & Geophysics published a review of their work by Professors Duncan Steel (Professor of Astrobiology, University of Buckingham) and Bill Napier (Honorary Professor, Buckingham Centre for Astrobiology); Professor Mark Bailey from Armagh Observatory and Dr. David Asher. Centaurs travel on unstable orbits and cross the paths of Neptune (Uranus), Saturn, Jupiter, and Jupiter, the outer planets. Sometimes, giant comets can be pulled towards Earth by these planets’ gravitational field. Centaurs, or giant comets, are large and can come in many shapes. They are far from Earth and appear in the most powerful telescopes as tiny pinpricks. (Image: news.sciencemag.org. Credit to NASA. Centaurs can be very large. They are huge comets that range in size from 50 up to 100, kilometres (31 and 62 mile. Some are larger. One of these comets is larger than all Earth-crossing asteroids. The scientists calculated that the chances of a giant comet being deflected by the gravitational pull of one of the outer planets directly towards Earth come to about one major impact every 40,000 to 100,000 years. These large objects will eventually disintegrate in near-Earth orbit, causing them to spread across the solar system as debris. According to what geologists and archeologists know about the history of our planet, plus our ever-increasing knowledge of interplanetary matter in near-Earth space, a giant comet’s fragment struck our planet about 30,000 years ago. The fragments of this centaur could have been small particles or large lumps, and scattered throughout the inner planetary systems. Specific occurrences of environmental upheaval about 10,800 BCE and 2,300 BCE, identified by palaeontologists (fossil scientists) and geologists, also confirm our new understanding of cometary populations. This is the outer solar system, as it appears now. At the center of the map is the Sun. To the right are the small orbits of Mars, Mercury, Venus and Earth. Bright blue shows the nearly circular paths of Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus, the four giant planets. In white, you can see the orbit of Pluto. The trans-Neptunian object (TNO) orbits, which are always beyond Neptune, are highlighted in yellow. There are currently seventeen TNO orbits. These are giant comets and the orbits of 22 Centaurs are highlighted in red. They are highly unstable. Image: www.ras.org.uk. Mass extinctions due to large comets. There have been mass extinctions throughout Earth’s history such as that of the dinosaurs 60-five million years back. These mass extinctions could also be related to the giant comet hypothesis. Professor Napier stated that our research on asteroids and comets has been extensive. “In the past three decades, we have spent a lot in analysing and tracking the possibility of an impact between Earth and an Asteroid. Our research suggests that we should look further than our immediate area and search beyond Jupiter’s orbit to locate centaurs. Scientists also found evidence in a variety of fields that supports their theory. For example, there are sub-millimetre craters found in lunar rocks which the Apollo programme brought back to Earth which are nearly all younger than 30,000 years. It is clear that there has been an increase in dust and other fragments within the Inner Solar System since then. Citation: “Centaurs are a danger to civilization,” Bill Napier and David Asher. Mark Bailey, Duncan Steel, Duncan Steel. Geophysics and Astronomy. December 2015. DOI: 10.1093/astrogeo/atv198. Video: Scientists warn of giant comets striking Earth
Giant Comets Could Destroy Life on Earth Anytime
