Scientists unravel the great mystery behind Earth’s multiple ice ages and what plunged us into a 300-million-year deep freeze

SCIENTISTS may have just unlocked the mystery behind the multiple ice ages that plunged the Earth into a deep freeze for 300 million years.

There are a number of theories about why Earth’s climate has cooled, such as our planet’s tilt and rotation, shifting tectonic plates, and volcanic eruptions.

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But scientists at Boston University say there is evidence that a giant cosmic cloud arose that meant heat from the Sun could not reach Earth.

In a new paper, published in Nature Astronomy, astrophysicist Merav Opher argues that a dense interstellar cloud in the solar system briefly pushed Earth and other planets out of the heliosphere.

The heliosphere is essentially a bubble around all the planets, filled with charged particles that protect the worlds from cosmic radiation.

Without it, Earth’s climate could have changed significantly, according to Opher.

“This paper is the first to show quantitatively that there was an encounter between the Sun and something outside the solar system that would have affected Earth’s climate,” said Opher, a professor of astronomy at Boston University and a fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute.

“Stars move and now this article shows not only that they move, but that they face drastic changes.

“But as soon as Earth moved away from the cold cloud, the heliosphere swallowed all the planets, including Earth.”

The space cloud could have exposed Earth to a tsunami of hydrogen and dust, mixed with iron and plutonium from the exploding stars.

It is this increase in space gas and dust that may have led Earth into a prolonged Ice Age.

According to the article, there is geological evidence showing higher levels of iron and plutonium isotopes in Earth’s oceans, Antarctic snow, ice cores and the Moon during the same period.

But once the cloud moved and Earth re-entered the heliosphere, our planet’s temperatures normalized.

Only rarely does our cosmic neighborhood beyond the solar system affect life on Earth

Avi Loeb, director of the Institute for Theory and Computing at Harvard University

“Only rarely does our cosmic neighborhood beyond the solar system affect life on Earth,” added Avi Loeb, director of the Institute for Theory and Computing at Harvard University and co-author of the paper.

“It is exciting to discover that our passage through dense clouds a few million years ago could have exposed Earth to a much greater flux of cosmic rays and hydrogen atoms.

“Our results open a new window into the relationship between the evolution of life on Earth and our cosmic neighborhood.”

While it’s impossible to say for sure whether the interstellar cloud actually triggered Earth’s Ice Age, researchers will continue to investigate the effect of clouds on Earth.