Live Science: scientists have put forward a new version of the causes of the Ice Age
An encounter with 'something beyond the solar system' may have triggered an ice age on Earth. A collision with a cold cloud of gas and dust two million years ago may have caused our planet's «protective giant bubble» to retract, cooling it, a new study claims.
Scientists believe Earth may have briefly lost its protection from the sun about two million years ago, leaving it in the extreme conditions of interstellar space as the solar system passed through the dense cloud of gas and dust between the stars, Live Science reports.
At that time, the first human ancestors shared our planet with prehistoric animals such as mastodons and saber-toothed tigers. At the same time, the Ice Age began on Earth, which ended only about 12 thousand years ago. Ice ages are caused by a number of factors, including the tilt and rotation of our planet, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, shifting tectonic plates, and volcanic eruptions on its surface. However, given the time when scientists believe Earth plunged into interstellar space, this study suggests that radical changes in our planet's climate, such as the onset and end of ice ages, may also be influenced by the position of our solar system in our home galaxy.< /p>
More specifically, the team behind the new findings suggests that the Solar System may have collided with a dense region of interstellar gas and dust when it crossed the Milky Way two million years ago. And this area could be dense enough to interfere with the flow of charged particles called «solar wind» that comes from the Sun and impacts the Earth, potentially causing a sharp drop in temperature.