The Shiva hypothesis, also known as coherent catastrophism, is the idea that global natural catastrophes on Earth, such as extinction events, happen at regular intervals because of the periodic motion of the Sun in relation to the Milky Way galaxy.

Initial proposal in 1979

William Napier and Victor Clube in their 1979 Nature article, ”A Theory of Terrestrial Catastrophism”,[1] proposed the idea that gravitational disturbances caused by the Solar System crossing the plane of the Milky Way galaxy are enough to disturb comets in the Oort cloud surrounding the Solar System. This sends comets in towards the inner Solar System, which raises the chance of an impact. According to the hypothesis, this results in the Earth experiencing large impact events about every 30 million years (such as the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event).

    • @WarlockLawyer
      link
      English
      132 months ago

      Stupid science saying they’ve disproven it. Trying to steal all our fun with facts and studies

      • @Zorque
        link
        English
        62 months ago

        These are the same people that took Pluto from us.

      • @DaMonsterKnees
        link
        English
        42 months ago

        Can’t wait to see what the Bobiverse does with it. Highly recommend that series.

      • classic
        link
        fedilink
        22 months ago

        There’s gotta be another way of understanding the world that isn’t impeded by facts. I thought we lived in a democracy??