EshanMaitra
We all know about the last mass extinction that occurred on Earth and wiped out the whole Dinosaur generations 65 million years ago. Scientists actually found the cycle of this mass extinction and it happens after certain period of time. Hence, the reason for it. The calculations suggest that the 6th Mass Extinction already has begun. Sadly, if the final blow comes upon us, humans will extinct much faster another than any previous life-forms on Earth. Other may call Biologists mad but they beg the differs. Biology Prof. Paul Ehrlich of Human Studies, Senior Stanford Fellow said in their video on this that, many species are disappearing and with much haste. Also the geological studies by Barkley Researchers suggests that mammals have always extincted two times faster than any others. If the 6th Mass Extinction impacts, human civilization will crumble 15 to 100 times faster than any previous extinctions. No, this is not a lecture about Global Warming. It is about the mysterious Planet X, the ninth planet of our solar system that has been playing the major role in all the mass extinction that have occurred on Earth since past 500 million years.
Recent findings are stirring up the debates about this hypothesis. Just few days’ back Prof. Mike Brown of Caltech tweeted a drawing of orbits of planets around the sun. There he included a newly found planet similar to Uranus or Neptune, Planet Nine.
It is a gaseous giant 10 times larger than the Earth. This has a very unique celestial alignment that goes beyond the Kuiper Belt. But it only has only orbit of 15,000 years. Unlike Whitmire’s Planet X, that should have 27 million years of cycle according to fossil records.
Planet X was first introduced by a retiredProf. Daniel Whitmire of Astrophysicist from the University of Arkansas. But the recent researches of the past records, using latest technologies are supporting the hypothesis even more. He published his paper on the Planet X in Nature in 1985. (Planet X is neither the Planet Nine or Pluto) There Whitmire mentioned his paleontologicalstudies dated back from 250 million years. That tracks the comet showers occurring on Earth in approximately 27 million years of intervals. Recently he studied further from 500 million years back and it totally supports the previous data. Whitemire says, these comets get dislodged from the Kuiper Belt toward the Sun by this mysterious ninth planet, when it passes through the Kuiper Belt (A far region of our Solar System, beyond Neptune full of comets and asteroids). Often the comets hit the Earth in this crossfire. Other times greatly blocks the sunlight from reaching Earth and greatly decreasing the temperature.
To understand the 5 Mass Extinctions occurred in the past, three hypotheses were introduced in 1980’s. Firstly, vertical oscillations of the sun caused huge climate change. Second, there possibly is a Sister Sun (another dwarf star similar to our Sun), that have caused the radical galactic changes. Thirdly, the work of a ninth planet. Over the course the first two hypotheses were disproven.
That game more momentum and scientists stumbled upon Planet Nine. It gives more assuring about the more unique and undiscovered subjects of our Solar System that is still undiscovered. Simply cause, they might be behind the comet cluster belts or it has much interesting and longer orbiting path the Sun. Search for the Planet X continues.