home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
The Epic Interactive Encyclopedia 1998
/
Epic Interactive Encyclopedia, The - 1998 Edition (1998)(Epic Marketing).iso
/
N
/
Nemesis_theory
/
INFOTEXT
< prev
Wrap
Text File
|
1992-09-01
|
612b
|
16 lines
Theory of animal extinction, suggesting that
a sister star to the Sun caused the
extinction of groups of animals such as
dinosaurs. The theory holds that the movement
of this as yet undiscovered star disrupts the
Oort cloud of comets every 26 million years,
resulting in the Earth suffering an increased
bombardment from comets at these times. The
theory was proposed in 1984 to explain the
newly discovered layer of iridium - an
element found in comets and meteorites - in
rocks dating from the end of dinosaur times.
However, many palaeontologists deny any
evidence for a 26-million-year cycle of
extinctions.