The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel: Sci, Space, Tech

Cosmic-Ray Cycles Trigger Mass Extinctions

Earth has seen five major extinctions in it's 4.5 billion year history, the last and biggest the Permian about 245 million years ago, which dropped the curtain on the dinosaurs along with 95 percent of animal species known from the fossil records.

University of Kansas researchers have concluded that cosmic rays produced at the edge of our galaxy have devastated life on Earth every 62 million years. The researchers discovered that high rates of extinction in the cycle coincide almost perfectly with periodic "excursions" of the solar system outside the central plane of the Milky Way galaxy.

Cosmic-Ray Cycles Trigger Mass Extinctions

Earth has seen five major extinctions in it's 4.5 billion year history, the last and biggest the Permian about 245 million years ago, which dropped the curtain on the dinosaurs along with 95 percent of animal species known from the fossil records.

University of Kansas researchers have concluded that cosmic rays produced at the edge of our galaxy have devastated life on Earth every 62 million years. The researchers discovered that high rates of extinction in the cycle coincide almost perfectly with periodic "excursions" of the solar system outside the central plane of the Milky Way galaxy.