Related papers: Revisiting the Dark Matter - Comet Shower Connecti…

Although statistical evidence is not overwhelming, possible support for an approximately 35 million year periodicity in the crater record on Earth could indicate a nonrandom underlying enhancement of meteorite impacts at regular intervals.…

Numerous studies over the past 30 years have suggested there is a causal connection between the motion of the Sun through the Galaxy and terrestrial mass extinctions or climate change. Proposed mechanisms include comet impacts (via…

We use the most up to date Milky Way model and solar orbit data in order to test the hypothesis that the Sun's galactic spiral arm crossings cause mass extinction events on Earth. To do this, we created a new model of the Milky Way's spiral…

We re-examine past suggestions of a close link between terrestrial climate change and the Sun's transit of spiral arms in its path through the Milky Way galaxy. These links produced concrete fits, deriving the unknown spiral pattern speed…

Recent knowledge of Galactic dynamics suggests that stars radially move on the disk when they encounter transient spiral arms that are naturally generated during the process of disk formation. We argue that a large movement of the solar…

If a component of the dark matter has dissipative interactions, it could collapse to form a thin dark disk in our Galaxy that is coplanar with the baryonic disk. It has been suggested that dark disks could explain a variety of observed…

We reply to criticisms by Desch et al. (2021) regarding our Scientific Reports paper, "Breakup of a long-period comet as the origin of the dinosaur extinction." The background impact rates of main-belt asteroids and long-period comets have…

We calculate the expected flux profile of comets into the planetary system from the Oort cloud arising from Galactic tides and encounters with molecular clouds. We find that both periodic and sporadic bombardment episodes, with amplitudes…

The short term variability of the Galactic cosmic ray flux (CRF) reaching Earth has been previously associated with variations in the global low altitude cloud cover. This CRF variability arises from changes in the solar wind strength.…

Dynamical friction implies a consistency check on any system where dark matter particles are hypothesised to explain orbital dynamics requiring more mass under Newtonian gravity than is directly detectable. Introducing the assumption of a…

Massive satellite accretions onto early galactic disks can lead to the deposition of dark matter in disk-like configurations that co-rotate with the galaxy. This phenomenon has potentially dramatic consequences for dark matter detection…

We investigate the effect of a dark matter caustic passing through the Solar System. We find, confirming a previous result, that the Sun tracks the caustic surface for some time. We integrate numerically the equations of motion of the Sun…

Dark matter (DM) comes from long-range gravitational observations, and it is considered as something that does not interact with ordinary matter or emits light. However, also on much smaller scales, a number of unexpected observations of…

Equation of motion for a comet in the Oort cloud is numerically solved. Orbital evolution of the comet under the action of the gravity of the Sun and the Galaxy is presented for various initial conditions. Oscillations of the Sun with…

The hypothesis of a companion object (Nemesis) orbiting the Sun was motivated by the claim of a terrestrial extinction periodicity, thought to be mediated by comet showers. The orbit of a distant companion to the Sun is expected to be…

Cosmological models with cosmic string and texture seeded universes predict a present abundance of very dense clumps of Cold Dark Matter particles. Their crossing through the solar system would induce a non-negligible amount of radiation…

Solar limb and disc spicule quasi- periodic motions have been reported for a long time, strongly suggesting that they are oscillating. In order to clear up the origin and possibly explain some solar limb and disc spicule quasi-periodic…

This thesis assesses the influence of astronomical phenomena on the Earth's biosphere and climate. I examine in particular the relevance of both the path of the Sun through the Galaxy and the evolution of the Earth's orbital parameters in…

The origin of the Chicxulub impactor, which is attributed as the cause of the K/T mass extinction event, is an unsolved puzzle. The background impact rates of main-belt asteroids and long-period comets have been previously dismissed as…

We present a calculation of the Sun's motion through the Milky Way Galaxy over the last 500 million years. The integration is based upon estimates of the Sun's current position and speed from measurements with Hipparcos and upon a realistic…