Nemesis is a myth
Monday, August 1, 2011 - 08:30
in Astronomy & Space
Danger looms from out of space: asteroids and comets are a threat to our planet. The history of Earth has always been punctuated by cosmic catastrophes. Several studies have claimed to have found periodic variations, with the probability of giant impacts increasing and decreasing in a regular pattern. Now a new analysis by Coryn Bailer-Jones from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) shows those simple periodic patterns to be statistical artifacts. His results indicate either that the Earth is as likely to suffer a major impact now as it was in the past, or that there has been a slight increase impact rate events over the past 250 million years.