Giant Comets Threaten Life On Earth, Astronomers Reveal New Findings

Space rocks could be a major threat to the Earth. Astronomers announced that they are keeping a close eye on distant giant comets that are passing by the Earth, according to a collaborated study by Armagh Observatory and the University of Buckingham. 

"In the last three decades, we have invested a lot of effort in tracking and analysing the risk of a collision between the Earth and an asteroid," Bill Napier, coauthor of the study from the University of Buckingham, said in a news release.

The majority of potential Earth smashers have been observed in the asteroid belt roughly between Mars, Earth and Jupiter, according to the researchers. Over the last two decades researchers have identified hundreds of giant comets dubbed centaurs that have larger orbits.

Most comets are about 50-100 kilometers (31-62 miles) wide and they have unstable elliptical orbits that are beyond Neptune. Their orbits pass through the orbit of giant planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, where their magnetic fields occasionally sends a comet in Earth's direction about every 40,000-100,000 years. As comets move closer to the sun, they gradually disintegrate, which causes their cometary debris tail.

"The disintegration of such giant comets would produce intermittent but prolonged periods of bombardment lasting up to 100,000 years," the research team wrote in a news release.

The researchers claimed that the nature and magnitude of near-Earth asteroids could have major potential impacts. The also claimed that a single centaur has more mass than the entire population of Earth-crossing asteroids that has been discovered.

"Our work suggests we need to look beyond our immediate neighborhood too, and look out beyond the orbit of Jupiter to find centaurs," Napier said.

Researchers believe that comets may have played a role in depositing water and organic molecules, which aided in the creation of life on Earth. Also, a comet strike could have been responsible for the widespread wipe-out of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

"If we are right, then these distant comets could be a serious hazard, and it's time to understand them better," Napier said.

The findings of this study were published in the journal Royal Astronomical Society.  

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