Tidal Effects of Passing Planets and Mass Extinctions

TL;DR

This paper explores how passing planetary-mass objects in the outer solar system could cause significant tidal effects and environmental disruptions on Earth, potentially leading to mass extinctions over the past 600 million years.

Contribution

It proposes a new hypothesis linking passing planets to Earth's mass extinctions, supported by recent observations of outer solar system objects.

Findings

Passing planets can generate gigantic tidal waves and volcanic eruptions.

Gravitational perturbations from outer objects may trigger impacts and climate change.

These events correlate with known mass extinctions in geological records.

Abstract

Recent observations suggest that many planetary-mass objects may be present in the outer solar system between the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. Gravitational perturbations may occasionally bring them into the inner solar system. Their passage near Earth could have generated gigantic tidal waves, large volcanic eruptions, sea regressions, large meteoritic impacts and drastic changes in global climate. They could have caused the major biological mass extinctions in the past 600 My as documented in the geological records.