dark matter (Photo : Reuters)
Around 66 million years ago the dinosaurs were likely killed by a huge asteroid that collided with Earth. Some scientists believe that this was one of several mass extinctions that dark matter caused every 26 million years.
According to paleontologists, mass extinctions in the world's history include the "Big Five." The worst one, the "Great Dying," occurred about 252 million years ago and destroyed 90 percent of the planet's species.
Scientists believe that several huge and smaller mass extinctions happen through multiple events, such as the eruption of a supervolcano and a huge impact.
One theory is that these mass extinctions occur randomly, due to terrible timing. However, another theory is that such cataclysmic events occur in cycles.
Two University of Chicago paleontologists in the early 1980s found evidence that mass extinctions have happened every 26 million years since the Great Dying. The timetable lines up with several mass extinctions.
The cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs, for example, could have been dark matter. Michael Rampino, a geoscientist at New York University, explains that it might be the missing link, according to Newsworks.
Dark matter is a substance that is invisible and mostly interacts with the universe through gravity. Astronomers have learned that there is quite a lot of it, by observing its gravitational pull on gigantic structures.
Researchers have used dark matter to explain why the huge impacts happen periodically. Rampino explains that it can explain the occurrences of supervolcanoes, according to Scientific American.
If the scenario were right, dark matter could result in major volcanic eruptions that could cause results such as climate change, fractured continents, and eventually mass extinction.
Rampino's hypothesis could have a major impact on planetary science. It depends if the dark matter is contained in clumps on a thin disk.
Rampino admits that concluding that fossils contain evidence of periodic mass extinctions is guesswork. However, it gives such scientists hope that they will eventually solve the puzzle.
Earth's solar system is now passing through where a disk of dark matter would exist in theory. So eventually science will either prove or disprove Rampino's theory.
