| 
			
 
 
  by William Hamilton III
 April 18, 2005
 
			from
			
			AstroSciences Website 
			  
			  
			  
			
  
			  
			  
			  
			Introduction
 First, we will have to ask ourselves, "what is time?" and how does 
			one 
			travel through time at a rate of speed slower or faster than the 
			ticking of a clock.
 
			  
			This is not a question that we are going to 
			answer any time soon as some of the greatest minds in philosophy, 
			physics, and psychology have grappled with it. We experience time as 
			one of the fundamental things in our lives, but it is so basic to 
			our experience that it is difficult to define it in physical terms.
			
 One definition of time is the continuum of experience in which 
			events pass from the future through the present to the past. But 
			that does not tell us much. How about, the time as given by a clock; 
			"do you know what time it is?"; "the time is 10 o'clock."
 
			  
			That still 
			doesn't tell us what the clock is measuring. Let's get more 
			sophisticated. Time is the fourth coordinate that is required (along 
			with three spatial dimensions) to specify a physical event. Now we 
			are getting more specific, more mathematical, but it still doesn't 
			tell us what time is. 
 I will attempt to give an operating definition here, one that is 
			useful in understanding time travel.
 
			  
			Time is a measurement of 
			motion. To measure time we need periodic and repetitious motion. The 
			earth orbiting the sun is one periodic motion that repeats itself 
			that we use to measure time. The rotation of the earth on its axis 
			is another motion we use to measure time.  
			  
			Sometimes these motions 
			depart from exact repetition even if just by a second. We can call 
			any instrument used to measure time a clock. We are always searching 
			for clocks of greater precision which means that during each cycle 
			of the clock there is little deviation from period to period. 
 We have a periodic motion of the earth with its diurnal rotation on 
			its axis. At the same time the earth advances in an elliptical orbit 
			around the sun which makes a difference in time between a solar and 
			a sidereal day. The whole solar system is then proceeding on a 
			journey around the galaxy in what may be a sinusoidal orbit which 
			has a period in a range of 220 to 250 million years.
 
			  
			It would be 
			useful to pinpoint our position in this galactic cycle as well as 
			determine our path of travel and rate of travel in order to map out 
			a timeline of critical events in the historical record against this 
			great galactic year herein referred to as a Cosmic Year.  
			  
			If we can 
			consider this Cosmic Year to be a grand cycle, and other periodic 
			motions as minor cycles and certain intersection points as major 
			cycles, we may be able to predict future events using a cyclic time 
			map.
 
			  
			  
			The 
			Grand Cycle
 
 The sun is one of hundreds of billion of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way.
 
			  
			The galaxy is composed of gaseous interstellar medium, 
			neutral or ionized, sometimes concentrated into dense gas clouds 
			made up of atoms molecules, and dust.  
			  
			All of the matter - gas, 
			dust, and stars - rotate around a central axis perpendicular to the 
			galactic plane. The centrifugal force caused by the rotation 
			balances out the gravitational force, which draw all the matter 
			toward the center.
 The mass is located within the circle of the Sun's orbit through the 
			galaxy is about 100 billion times the mass of the Sun.
 
			  
			Because the Sun is about average in mass, astronomers have concluded that 
			the 
			galaxy contains about 100 billion stars within its disk. 
				
					
					
					All stars in the galaxy rotate around a galactic center but not with 
			the same period
					
					Stars at the center have a shorter period than 
			those farther out
					
					The Sun is located in the outer part of the 
			galaxy
					
					The speed of the solar system due to the galactic rotation 
			is about 220 km/s
					
					The disk of stars in the Milky Way is about
					100,000 light years across 
					
					The sun is located about 30,000 light 
			years from the galactic center 
			Based on a distance of 30,000 light 
			years and a speed of 220 km/s, the Sun's orbit around the center of 
			the Milky Way once every 225 million years. The period of time is 
			called a cosmic year. The Sun has orbited the galaxy, more than 20 
			times during its 5 billion year lifetime.  
			  
			The motions of the period 
			are studied by measuring the positions of lines in the galaxy 
			spectra. 
			  
			  
			
			 
			  
			
			 
			  
			  
			The orbit of the Sun around the 
			Milky Way is influenced by the 
			galaxy's matter, which does not solely occupy the galactic center. 
			 
			  
			Instead, it is distributed all over space. Some of the galaxy's mass 
			is inside the sun's orbit and some of it is outside. The Sun's 
			orbital period is determined by the galaxy's mass within the orbit 
			of the Sun.
 Newton's explanation of the speed of stars in the Milky Way is as 
			follows. He showed that stars closer to the galactic center, 
			including the Sun, experience a gravitational pull equal to the pull 
			created by the mass that is equal to that of all the stars closer to 
			the galactic center. Hence, the mass of the galactic center is equal 
			to the total mass of all the stars closer to the center.
 
 He also showed that stars farther from the center have a combined 
			gravitational force of zero.
 
			  
			Those stars pull in all different and 
			opposite directions, canceling out one another. Therefore, the stars 
			closer to the center experience a gravitational pull towards the 
			center and they move at greater speeds, since there is more force 
			acting upon them.  
			  
			Conversely, more distant stars have less force 
			acting upon them and in turn, they travel at lower speeds. In 
			addition, stars beyond this distance have speeds that stop 
			decreasing and eventually remain constant.
 We will examine some of these figures given above again by making 
			certain calculations based on the researches of Bob Alexander and 
			others on periodic catastrophic events such as the great extinction 
			events that have occurred in earth's long history going back to 250 
			million years ago.
 
 
			  
			  
			Radio 
			astronomers measure sun's orbit around Milky Way
 by
			Paul Recer
 Associated Press
 
				
				CHICAGO 
				Astronomers focusing on a 
				star at the center of the Milky Way say they have measured 
				precisely for the first time how long it takes the sun to circle 
				its home galaxy: 226 million years. The last time the sun was at 
				this exact spot of its galactic orbit, dinosaurs ruled the 
				world. 
 Using a radio telescope system that measures celestial distances 
				500 times more accurately than the Hubble Space Telescope, 
				astronomers plotted the motion of the Milky Way and found that 
				the sun and its family of planets were orbiting the galaxy at 
				about 135 miles per second.
 
 That means it takes the solar system about 226 million years to 
				orbit the Milky Way and puts the most precise value ever 
				determined on one of the fundamental motions of the Earth and 
				its sun, said James Moran of Harvard-Smithsonian Center for 
				Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.
 
 A report on the finding was presented Tuesday at a national 
				meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
 
 "Our new figure of 226 million miles is accurate to within 6 
				percent," Mark Reid, a Harvard-Smithsonian astronomer and leader 
				of the team that made the measurements, said in a statement.
 
					
						
						
						The sun is one of about 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, 
					one 
				of billions of ordinary galaxies in the universe. 
						
						The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, with curving arms of stars pinwheeling out from a center.
						
						
						The solar system is about halfway out on one of these arms and 
				is about 26,000 light years from the center. A light year is 
				about 6 trillion miles.  
				Reid and his team made the measurement using the 
				Very Long 
				Baseline Array, a system of 10 large radio-telescope antennae 
				placed 5,000 miles across the United States, from the U.S. 
				Virgin Islands to Hawaii. 
 Working together as a single unit, the antennae can measure 
				motions in the distant universe with unprecedented accuracy.
 
 The accuracy is such that the VLBA can look at a bit of sky that 
				has an apparent size one ten- thousandth the diameter of a human 
				hair held at arms length.
 
 For their solar system measurement, the astronomers focused on 
				Sagittarius A, a star discovered two decades ago to mark the 
				Milky Way's center. Over a 10-day period, they measured the 
				apparent shift in position of the star against the background of 
				stars far beyond.
 
 The apparent motion of Sagittarius A is very, very small, just 
				one-600,000th of what could be detected with the human eye, the 
				astronomers said.
 
 Reid said the measurement adds supports to the idea that 
				the 
				Milky Way's center contains a supermassive black hole.
 
					
					"This ... strengthens the idea that this object, much smaller 
				than our own solar system, contains a black hole about 2.6 
				million times more massive than the sun," Reid said in a 
				statement.  
				Moran said the new measurement of the solar system orbit adds 
				new accuracy to a fundamental fact of the universe: Everything 
				is moving constantly.  
					
						
						
						The Earth rotates on its axis at about 
					1,100 miles an hour, a 
				motion that creates day and night. 
						
						The Earth orbits the sun at about 
					67,000 miles an hour, a motion 
				that takes one year. 
						
						The sun circles the Milky Way at a speed of about 
					486,000 miles 
				per hour.  
				And every object in the universe is moving apart from 
				the other objects as the universe expands at a constantly 
				accelerating rate.
				This press release gives us some more accurate figures to work 
				with. 
			  
			  
			Mass 
			Extinctions Occur Every 62 Million Years
 
 Let us now look at another press release from March 10, 2005:
 
				
				With surprising and mysterious 
				regularity, life on Earth has flourished and vanished in cycles 
				of mass extinction every 62 million years, say two UC Berkeley 
				scientists who discovered the pattern after a painstaking 
				computer study of fossil records going back for more than 500 
				million years. 
 Their findings are certain to generate a renewed burst of 
				speculation among scientists who study the history and evolution 
				of life.
 
				  
				Each period of abundant life and each mass extinction 
				has itself covered at least a few million years - and the trend 
				of biodiversity has been rising steadily ever since the last 
				mass extinction, when dinosaurs and millions of other life forms 
				went extinct about 65 million years ago. 
 The Berkeley researchers are physicists, not biologists or 
				geologists or paleontologists, but they have analyzed the most 
				exhaustive compendium of fossil records that exists - data that 
				cover the first and last known appearances of no fewer than 
				36,380 separate marine genera, including millions of species 
				that once thrived in the world's seas, later virtually 
				disappeared, and in many cases returned.
 
 Richard Muller and his graduate student, Robert Rohde, are 
				publishing a report on their exhaustive study in the journal 
				Nature today, and in interviews this week, the two men said they 
				have been working on the surprising evidence for about four 
				years.
 
					
					"We've tried everything we can think of to find an explanation 
				for these weird cycles of biodiversity and extinction," 
					Muller 
				said, "and so far, we've failed."  
				But the cycles are so clear that the evidence "simply jumps out 
				of the data," said James Kirchner, a professor of earth and 
				planetary sciences on the Berkeley campus who was not involved 
				in the research but who has written a commentary on the report 
				that is also appearing in Nature today.
				 
					
					"Their discovery is exciting, it's unexpected and it's 
				unexplained," Kirchner said. And it is certain, he added, to 
				send other scientists in many disciplines seeking explanations 
				for the strange cycles. "Everyone and his brother will be 
				proposing an explanation - and eventually, at least one or two 
				will turn out to be right while all the others will be wrong."
					 
				Muller and Rohde conceded that they have puzzled through every 
				conceivable phenomenon in nature in search of an explanation: 
				 
					
					"We've had to think about solar system dynamics, about the 
				causes of comet showers, about how the galaxy works, and how 
				volcanoes work, but nothing explains what we've discovered,"
					Muller said.  
				The evidence of strange extinction cycles that first drew 
				Rohde's attention emerged from an elaborate computer database he 
				developed from the largest compendium of fossil data ever 
				created. It was a 560-page list of marine organisms developed 14 
				years ago by the late J. John Sepkoski Jr., a famed paleobiologist at the University of Chicago who died at the age 
				of 50 nearly five years ago. 
 Sepkoski himself had suggested that marine life appeared to have 
				its ups and downs in cycles every 26 million years, but to Rohde 
				and Muller, the longer cycle is strikingly more evident, 
				although they have also seen the suggestion of even longer 
				cycles that seem to recur every 140 million years.
 
 Sepkoski's fossil record of marine life extends back for 540 
				million years to the time of the great "Cambrian Explosion," 
				when almost all the ancestral forms of multicellular life 
				emerged, and Muller and Rohde built on it for their computer 
				version.
 
 Muller has long been known as an unconventional and imaginative 
				physicist on the Berkeley campus and at the Lawrence Berkeley 
				Laboratory.
 
				  
				It was he, for example, who suggested more than 20 
				years ago that an undiscovered faraway dwarf star - which he 
				named "Nemesis" - was orbiting the sun and might have steered a 
				huge asteroid into the collision with Earth that drove the 
				dinosaurs to extinction.
				 
					
					"I've given up on Nemesis," 
					Muller said this week, "but then I 
				thought there might be two stars somewhere out there, but I've 
				given them both up now."  
				He and Rohde have considered many other possible causes for the 
				62- million-year cycles, they said. 
 Perhaps, they suggested, there's an unknown "Planet X" somewhere 
				far out beyond the solar system that's disturbing the comets in 
				the distant region called the Oort Cloud - where they exist by 
				the millions - to the point that they shower the Earth and 
				cause extinctions in regular cycles.
 
				  
				Daniel Whitmire and 
				John Matese of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette proposed that 
				idea as a cause of major comet showers in 1985, but no one 
				except UFO believers has ever discovered a sign of it. 
 Or perhaps there's some kind of "natural timetable" deep inside 
				the Earth that triggers cycles of massive volcanism, Rohde has 
				thought. There's even a bit of evidence: A huge slab of volcanic 
				basalt known as the Deccan Traps in India has been dated to 65 
				million years ago - just when the dinosaurs died, he noted.
 
				  
				And 
				the similar basaltic Siberian Traps were formed by volcanism 
				about 250 million years ago, at the end of the Permian period, 
				when the greatest of all mass extinctions drove more than 70 
				percent of all the world's marine life to death, Rohde said.
				 
			The two scientists proposed more far-out 
			ideas in their report in Nature, but only to indicate the 
			possibilities they considered. 
 Muller's favorite explanation, he said informally, is that the solar 
			system passes through an exceptionally massive arm of our own spiral 
			Milky Way galaxy every 62 million years, and that that increase in 
			galactic gravity might set off a hugely destructive comet shower 
			that would drive cycles of mass extinction on Earth.
 
 Rohde, however, prefers periodic surges of volcanism on Earth as the 
			least implausible explanation for the cycles, he said - although 
			it's only a tentative one, he conceded.
 
 Said Muller: "We're getting frustrated and we need help. All I can 
			say is that we're confident the cycles exist, and I cannot come up 
			with any possible explanation that won't turn out to be fascinating.
 
			  
			There's something going on in the fossil record, and we just don't 
			know what it is."  
			
			1
 
			  
			  
			Periodic 
			Mass Extinctions, Alexander's Thesis
 
 Let us now look at Bob Alexander's thesis and calculations which I 
			will vary somewhat to determine the actual length of the Cosmic Year 
			if his sinusoidal orbit is taken into consideration.
 
 Periodic mass extinctions appear to have happened at least several 
			times throughout the Earth's history. In some cases most of the life 
			forms which existed just prior to these extinctions were completely 
			wiped out.
 
 The K/T boundary, as it is called, marks the end of the reign of the 
			dinosaurs and is on the order of 65 Million years old. It is 
			popularly believed that a large asteroid struck the Earth causing a 
			worldwide change in climate which interrupted the food chain.
 
 No veggies means no veggie eating dinosaurs and then no dinosaur 
			eating dinosaurs. The extinction of the dinosaurs allowed mammals to 
			evolve and if they had not died out we probably wouldn't be here to 
			talk about it.
 
 More recently discovered 'Smoking Gun' evidence points to another 
			mass extinction which occurred around 251 Million years ago when 
			another large asteroid presumably struck the earth.
 
			  
			And there 
			appears to be even newer evidence that mass extinctions may happen 
			at the rate of every 62 Million years (+/- 3MY). 
			  
			  
			  
				
					
						| 
						Period (End of) 
						 | 
						Die out rate | 
						/ X |  
						| 
						65 MYA (Cretaceous) 
						 | 
						85 %  | 
						/1 = 65 MY |  
						| 
						208 MYA (Trassic) 
						 | 
						25% over time | 
						/3 = 69.33 MY |  
						| 
						245 MYA (Permian) | 
						96% | 
						/4 = 61.25 MY |  
						| 
						365 MYA (Devonian) 
						 | 
						70% over time  | 
						/6 = 60.83 MY |  
						| 
						438 MYA (Ordovician) | 
						50% + some over time | 
						/7 = 62.57 MY |  
						|   |   | 
						
						Average 63.796 MY |      
			  
			By virtue of the chart above I believe 
			the average is more like 63.796 MY, but for now let's say that 62 MY 
			(based on current physical evidence) is the periodic mass extinction 
			average. 
				
					
					251 / 62 = 4.048 (Remember that 
					number)  
			Since it is difficult to find a 
			terrestrial based cause for these extinctions which would repeat on 
			such regular intervals on such a long time scale, lets say that 
			something happens every 62 Million (or so) years which puts us in 
			harms way, so to speak.
 Well, guess what ?
 
 
  In it's orbit 
			around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, our Solar 
			system may also do this little sinusoidal motion from the top to the 
			bottom to the top (and so on) of the Orion arm (image right) which we go around 
			in. 
			  
			Now, what if the period of one cycle through the arm is around 
			124 Million years?  
			  
			Within one cycle we would pass through the 
			middle of the ring (the most dense part) twice and about every 62 
			million years. Are you with me so far ?.
 As we spin around in the arm our forward motion (~150,000 miles/sec) 
			is continuous, but if we go up and down also, that rate would change 
			with position due to angular motion.
 
			  
			There is also the possibility 
			that we move side to side within the arm, but for the sake of this 
			discussion let's ignore that for now. 
 Now, it's bad enough that we would traverse this much more dense 
			part of the ring, but we would go through its' center at maximum 
			velocity, much faster (in the up/down axis) than when we reach the 
			outer edges of the arm where that relative motion (again up/down) 
			stops altogether so that it can reverse.
 
			  
			If we didn't stop (in the 
			up/down axis), we would just fly off into deep space and it would be 
			bye-bye Milky Way. But luckily (or not) all of the mass nearer the 
			center of the arm has gravitational force with acts to pull us back 
			in for yet another cycle.
 It may well be that these huge killer asteroids do not 'hit us' as 
			much as we run into them. Also, traveling at that much greater rate 
			of speed means that we have a much better chance of hitting randomly 
			moving objects because we are 'sweeping' through a larger sectional 
			area of space per unit of time.
 
 The center of the ring isn't a hard boundary, it is just more dense 
			than on either side and there is a density gradient as you move away 
			from the center. So, there is some latitude for interval timing due 
			to this 'kill zone' principal.
 
			  
			Also, since not everything in the 
			ring rotates at the same speed, conditions through the next pass may 
			not be the same as the last one, so hitting something (or not) 
			becomes a bit of a crap shoot. Maybe the Earth gets lucky 
			occasionally and we shoot through the middle of the ring unscathed. 
			This would explain gaps in the mass extinction record. 
 Ok then, remember the 4.048 number I told you to remember when we 
			started ?
 
 Well, 4.048 is very close to 4... as in 4 complete cycles or 8 
			centerline passes in 251M years. The error of margin then is about 
			375,000 years per centerline pass or 187,500 years on either side of 
			it.
 
			  
			251M/62M= 4.048 intervals 4.048 - 4 = 0.048 (margin for error 
			over 251MY) .048 / 8 = .006 (Margin for error per centerline pass) 
			.006 x 62M = .375 MY (375,000 Y) per centerline pass or 187,500 Y 
			off either side of the centerline.
 By the way, if my 'napkin' calculations are right, and the dinosaurs 
			were wiped out by a big asteroid 65 MY ago we are due for the next 
			one just about... yesterday... minus ~3 MY. In other words, either 
			we are ~3 Million years over due or just got lucky on this pass.
 
 Lets look at a few numbers. The Milky Way Galaxy is about 100,000 
			Light Years in diameter. Our Solar system is about 26,000 light 
			years or about 2/3 of the way out from the galactic center and we 
			revolve at 250 kilometers per second, or about 150 miles per second.
 
			  
			We make 
			one revolution every 226 MY which means that we have made about 20 
			revolutions since the Earth was formed about 4.5 BY ago. It is 
			estimated that there are between 200 and 400 BILLION other stars in 
			the Milky Way and that at least some of those have planets. It is 
			likely from looking at our own Solar system that at least some of 
			those planets probably have moons.  
			  
			That's a lot of stuff - not to 
			mention asteroids and comets.
 They say that a picture is worth a thousand words, so below is a 
			graphic below which illustrates my theory.
 
			  
			  
			 
			  
			  
			It is believed that we are about 20 
			Light Years away from the centerline of the Orion arm which is 
			believed to be 3000 LY thick in our vicinity.  
			  
			That works out to 
			being about .006 or .6% (20/3000) away from the centerline if the 
			cycle was linear, but it isn't. And we may not be out of the 
			woods... or rocks, as it were, yet.
 If the last mass extinction was 65 Million Years ago and the half 
			cycle period is around 62 MY then the .006 figure is fairly 
			predictable (not to mention scary) especially if we are moving away 
			from the centerline.
 
 One final note though before I go. If you think there is anything we 
			could do to stop one of these killer asteroids if one were 
			discovered tomorrow, you have been watching too many Hollywood 
			movies. NO ONE has a plan on how to deal with this (there are plenty 
			of ideas) especially our government which, more realistically, would 
			probably spend our last days in typical fashion trying to decide who 
			should pay for such a project...
 
 Until asteroids or comets are near a luminous source (like our 
			Sun) 
			they are very dark. Most big telescopes are funded to do specific 
			tasks, they don't hunt for these civilization killers.
 
			  
			And, since 
			the number of serious amateur astronomers world wide who look for 
			these objects is probably less than that of the staff at your local MacDonalds, it is likely that the only notice you will receive (if 
			you are awake and looking in that direction) will be the thousand 
			foot high wall of debris (which was formerly your neighborhood) 
			coming at you at about mach three when one of them strikes the 
			Earth.  
			2
 
			  
			  
			Cosmic 
			Year Calculations
 
 Since the sine wave curve in Alexander's orbit is an ellipse viewed 
			edge-on (this is aside from the to view of the sun's galactic orbit 
			which is another ellipse), then in order to calculate the path 
			length in one period of the sine wave, we need to calculate the 
			length of the perimeter of an ellipse.
 
 It seems in geometry that the ellipse is the "forgotten stepbrother" 
			of the circle even though the ellipse is far more interesting. First 
			some definitions.
 
			  
			  
			 
			  
				
				An ellipse 
				is the locus of points the sum of whose distances from two fixed 
				points, called foci, is a constant.Line AB is the
				Major Axis (also called Long 
				Axis or Line of Apsides).
 Lines AO and OB are the
				Semi-Major axes.
 Line CD is the
				Minor Axis and is the 
				perpendicular bisector of the Major Axis.
 Points f1 and f2 are the 
				foci of the ellipse.
 Points A and B are called 
				apses.
 The eccentricity of an 
				ellipse equals (f1 f2 / AB)
 
				  
				or (c/a)
 or  (Line f1 B) - (Line A f1)
 
 
				     
				(Line f1 B) + (Line A f1)    
				As the eccentricity value goes from 
				0 to 1, the ellipse goes from circular to highly elongated. 
 The Minor Axis to Major Axis Ratio, 
				which we will call Y/X, equals
 
				  
				  
				 
				  
				  
				The 
				perimeter of an ellipse approximately equals 
				 
				  
				  
				 
				  
				  
				The area 
				of an ellipse equals  
				  
				  
				 
				  
			I have found a new estimate for the 
			galactic radius of the sun's orbit at 26,000 light years from 
			galactic center.  
			  
			This makes the circumference of the orbit over 
			162,000 LY. Now, if this was a simple planar orbit such as our 
			planet's orbit in the plane of the ecliptic, the time it takes for 
			one orbit would be over 229 million years and I have found various 
			authoritative sources stating figures from 220 to 250+ million 
			years.
 In it's orbit around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, our 
			Solar 
			system may also do this little sinusoidal motion from the top to the 
			bottom to the top (and so on) of the Orion arm which we go around 
			in.
 
 Now, it's bad enough that we would traverse this much more dense 
			part of the ring, but we would go through its' center at maximum 
			velocity, much faster (in the up/down axis) than when we reach the 
			outer edges of the arm where that relative motion (again up/down) 
			stops altogether so that it can reverse. If we didn't stop (in the 
			up/down axis), we would just fly off into deep space and it would be 
			bye-bye Milky Way.
 
			  
			But luckily (or not) all of the mass nearer the 
			center of the arm has gravitational force with acts to pull us back 
			in for yet another cycle.
 It may well be that these huge killer asteroids do not 'hit us' as 
			much as we run into them. Also, traveling at that much greater rate 
			of speed means that we have a much better chance of hitting randomly 
			moving objects because we are 'sweeping' through a larger sectional 
			area of space per unit of time.
 
 There are other possibilities for catastrophic and cataclysmic 
			events due to solar motion when the solar path intersects what I 
			would call dust and debris fields in space.
 
			  
			  
			 
			  
			  
			  
			  
			Milky Way 
			Galaxy Bands of Dust and Gas?   
			
			Sun in Orion Arm
 We need top consider variations in solar output resulting in climate 
			change, the rising probability of encounters with comets, asteroids, 
			and dust, and the possibility of plagues resulting from bacteria and 
			viruses embedded in dust, comets, and asteroids that could bring us 
			diseases from space as hypothesized by the late Fred Hoyle in his 
			book, with Chandra Wrickramasinghe, 
			 
			
			Diseases From Space.
 
			  
			Another 
			periodic event is the reversal of polarity in the terrestrial 
			magnetic field. We also have speculative periodic events such as 
			
			the 
			Mayan calendar forecast for the winter solstice of 2012 which we 
			will expand on as we revise this essay from time to time.
 Now a complete sinuosoidal cycle would cross the galactic equator 
			every 62 or 62.5 million years with a half period of 31 million 
			years. This is data I obtained from a guy named Bob Alexander who 
			has been looking into this, but he used slightly different figures 
			that I used to calculate and admits that the minor axis of this 
			elliptical wave may be less than the 3,000 LY years he initially 
			calculated with a major axis.
 
 I used a calculator to determine the length of the perimeter of an 
			ellipse which involves a close approximation using the semi-major 
			axis and semi-minor axis to determine the actual path length of the 
			orbit using Bob's figures and thus the time it takes for 1 circuit 
			around the galaxy.
 
 Within a margin of error I determined that the entire length of the 
			sinusoidal path would be 180,941.0769 LY (slightly less if the 
			semi-minor axis is shorter).
 
			  
			This would result in a Cosmic Year 
			period of 249, 698,580 years instead of 226 million years and if 
			shortened slightly from errors in estimates to 248 million years we 
			would have the following calculation: 
			  
			  
			  
			248MY/62MY = 4 
				
					
						
							
								|   
								My Calculations 
								where AO = semimajor axis and CO = semiminor 
								axis
 
 AO = 20357.5 LY                       
								CO=1500 LY
 AO(sq) = 414427806.3               
								CO(sq)=225000
 
 
 SUM = 414652806.3
 X ½ = 207326403.1 SQ. RT = 14398.83339
 X pi = 45235.26921 X 4 = 180,941.0769 LY (too 
								much e)
 Period of Galactic Orbit = 249, 698,580 years
 Periodic Extinctions = 248/62 = 4
   |      
			Here is an interesting translation of 
			the Mayan Long Count from their cycles of 360 days converted to our 
			cycles of 365.25 days in terms of years.  
			  
			Of significance here is the
			alautun which is approximately 63,081,429 solar years in length.  
			  
			If 
			this represents the periodic extinction cycle which occurs 4 times 
			in the Cosmic Year, then the Cosmic Year or Period of our Galactic 
			Orbit may be 4 alautuns or 252, 325, 716 years which is 1.0105 x our 
			calculated period above. 
			  
			  
				
					
						| 
 
  | Cycle  | Composed of  | TotalDays
 | Years(approx.)
 |  
  | kin  |    | 1  |    |  
  | uinal  | 20 kin  | 20  |    |  
  | tun  | 18 uinal  | 360  | 0.986  |  
  | katun  | 20 tun  | 7200  | 19.7  |  
  | baktun  | 20 katun  | 144,000  | 394.3  |  
  | pictun  | 20 baktun  | 2,880,000  | 7,885  |  
  | calabtun  | 20 piktun  | 57,600,000  | 157,704  |  
  | kinchiltun  | 20 calabtun  | 1,152,000,000  | 3,154,071  |  
  | alautun  | 20 kinchiltun  | 23,040,000,000  | 63,081,429  |  |      
			In other words, there are 4 critical 
			points in the Cosmic Year that may result in mass extinction events. 
			 
			  
			I am still investigating sub-cycles using the Platonic Year, but an 
			interesting thing is that the solar ecliptic is tilted about 62 
			degrees from the galactic equator (87 degrees from the celestial 
			equator) which means the orbital plane of our solar system is at an 
			angle to the galactic plane that could determine the slope of our 
			ellipse with a little more calculation which remains to be done. 
 I admit this is speculation for now, but it may be that we can 
			improve our forecasts for the future by studying these cycles.
 
 Bob said,
 
				
				"It is believed that we are about 20 Light Years away from 
			the centerline of the Orion arm which is believed to be 3000 LY 
			thick in our vicinity. That works out to being about .006 or .6% 
			(20/3000) away from the centerline if the cycle was linear, but it 
			isn't. And we may not be out of the woods... or rocks, as it were, 
			yet." 
			  
			  
			Comparing the Mayan Time Cycles to Precession
 
			  
			 
			  
			At this point I will include my essay 
			entitled SUN STORM in order to examine a growing story about the Mayan time cycles.
 Astronomers are learning more about our mysterious star we call the 
			Sun. The sun is a huge fusion reactor that slowly fuses hydrogen 
			nuclei into helium nuclei.
 
 Our sun is a medium-sized yellow star that is 93,026,724 miles from 
			the Earth. This distance also determines a measure of 1 Astronomical 
			Unit. This distance varies over a year.
 
 The Sun's core can reach 10 to 22.5 million °F. The surface 
			temperature is approximately 9,900°F (5,500°C). The outer atmosphere 
			of the Sun (which we can see during a solar eclipse) gets extremely 
			hot again, up to 1.5 to 2 million degrees. At the center of big 
			sunspots the temperature can be as low as 7300 °F (4300 K, 4000 °C). 
			The temperature of the Sun is determined by measuring how much 
			energy (both heat and light) it emits.
 
 The sun has been determined to be about 4.5 billion years old. The 
			earth and the sun are of the same age having formed at the same time 
			according to existing theory.
 
 The sun emits electromagnetic radiation and charged particles. 
			Frequently, the sun will flare and brighten and an explosive flare 
			will emit the energy equivalent of millions of 100-megaton Hydrogen 
			bombs.
 
 Stars like the sun are considered to be stable over their life 
			cycles. The outward pressure of gases in the solar wind balances the 
			inward force of gravity. Lucky for us.
 
 
 
			  
			
			Novas
 
 From time to time a white dwarf star will accumulate too much 
			hydrogen gas from a neighbor and this results in a tremendous 
			explosion of this gas shell that brightens the star in the heavens.
 
			  
			This is what we know as a nova. It usually occurs at the final 
			stages of a star's life cycle. 
				
					
					
					Yet, do we know all that we need to know about novas? 
					
					
					What happens 
			if a cloud of hydrogen gas of unusually high density were to engulf 
			our Sun.? 
					
					Could a mini-nova result in the expulsion of a shell of 
			gas that would burst like a firestorm through the solar system? 
					 
			Although it seems unlikely, studies of ancient history seem to 
			indicate variations in solar output that may have produced 
			catastrophic changes on earth.  
			  
			Even today, a variation in solar 
			luminosity is occurring and scientists report that the slight 
			increase in solar output may be contributing to climate change and 
			global warming.  
			  
			There is some evidence that some of the other 
			planets in our system are also experiencing warmer temperatures and 
			climate change. These changes could be the result of increasing 
			accumulations of cosmic dust through which our solar system is 
			passing.
 My interest in the sun has recently been stimulated by reports I 
			have received from a man, 
			Dr. 
			
			Dan B.C. Burisch, who claims he is a 
			microbiologist who works for a shadowy arm of the government. He 
			tells me that preparations are being made for a coming catastrophe 
			in the year 2012 that involves changes in our sun and its effects on 
			the earth.
 
			  
			This is, of course, related to deciphering the Mayan 
			symbols that seem to point to the winter solstice of our year 2012.
 This is such an immense subject that my research on it continues in 
			spurts. To summarize the predictions it can be said that a recurring 
			event may cause the change in our sun. That event, known as the 
			grand crossing, is synchronized to the precession of the 
			equinoxes.
 
 Here is a description of that event:
 
				
				
				
				 "Is there something significant we 
				should know about the Winter Solstice date of December 21, 2012? 
				Yes. 
				  
				
				On this day a rare astronomical and Mayan mythical event 
				occurs. In astronomic terms, the Sun conjuncts the intersection 
				of the Milky Way and the plane of the ecliptic.  
				  
				
				The Milky Way, 
				as most of us know, extends in a general north-south direction 
				in the night sky. The plane of the ecliptic is the track the 
				Sun (click image right), Moon, planets and stars appear to travel in the sky, from 
				east to west. It intersects the Milky Way at a 60 degree angle 
				near the constellation Sagittarius. 
 The cosmic cross formed by the intersecting Milky Way and plane 
				of the ecliptic was called the Sacred Tree by the Maya. The 
				trunk of the tree, the Axis Mundi, is the Milky Way, and the 
				main branch intersecting the tree is the plane of the ecliptic.
 
				  
				
				Mythically, at sunrise on December 21, 2012, the Sun - our 
				Father - rises to conjoin the center of the Sacred Tree, the 
				World Tree, the Tree of Life. 
				  
				  
				 
				  
				The galactic center and the 
				Great 
				Rift contain great clouds of hydrogen gas and dust, the 
				substances out of which stars are formed. These clouds partially 
				block our view of the bright stars that crowd the galactic 
				center. 
				The great rift of the Milky Way begins near Deneb and extends SW 
				deep into the southern Milky Way ending near Alpha Centauri. The 
				dust clouds of the rift are probably 1,000 light-years distant 
				in Cygnus, and approach us in Aquila, Scutum, Sagittarius and 
				Scorpius, where they are only a few hundred light years away.
 
 The Eagle Aquila is dusted with dark nebulae, ancient star 
				cities, stellar outbursts and the faint puffs of exploded stars. 
				Aquila is on the celestial equator and cuts through the great 
				rift of the Milky Way where it runs NE - SW. Aquila is poor in 
				clusters, rich in faint planetary nebulae, and loaded with dark 
				nebulae.
 
 This rare astronomical event, foretold in the Mayan creation 
				story of the Hero Twins, and calculated empirically by them, 
				will happen for many of us in our lifetime.
 
				  
				The Sun has not conjoined the Milky 
				Way and the plane of the ecliptic since some 25,800 years ago, 
				long before the Mayans arrived on the scene and long before 
				their predecessors the Olmecs arrived. What does this mean? " 
				  
				  
				 
				(from:
				
				http://www.crawford2000.co.uk/maya.htm) 
				  
			Many do not think that anything special 
			will happen, but others believe that the Mayans recorded significant 
			events and used precise calendars to forecast the recurrence of 
			periodic cycles marked by special events.
 Why would the intersection of our sun and solar system with the 
			Milky Way's equatorial plane constitute a noteworthy event?
 
				
				"The auspicious year of 2012 
				indicated in the long count calendar illuminates the fact that 
				the Precessional movement of the Winter Solstice Sun will 
				gradually bring its position into alignment with the very center 
				of our Galaxy.  
				  
				For the Maya, this is like the last 
				stroke of Midnight on New Year's Eve; only in 2012 the New Year 
				is the New Galactic Year of 26,000 solar years. The Galactic 
				Clock will be at zero point and a New Precessional Cycle will 
				begin."(from 
				
				2012 - The Astronomy Connection)
 
			
			
			
			Maurice Cotterell 
			has studied the Mayan 
			(below image), 
			Egyptian, and Incan lost sciences of the sun and has determined that 
			the sun goes through cycles of magnetic reversals and changes of 
			direction.  
			  
			
			He believes that the ancient calendars show how the earth 
			was destroyed 5 times due to the sun's twisting magnetic fields.  
			  
			  
			
			 
			  
			  
			The last piece of the puzzle that may explain why the sun will react 
			to this event comes from Dr. Paul LaViolette in his book, 
			
			Earth 
			Under Fire.  
				
				"In a nutshell, the book is about 
				LaViolette's dissertation subject, being [about] the effect of periodic galactic core explosions 
				- the period being roughly 26,000 years - which send out shells of cosmic rays (chiefly in 
				the form of electrons moving at near light-speed) that are 
				hundreds to thousands of light-years thick (the thickness being 
				the duration of that particular galactic core explosion).
 The effect of this constant blast of cosmic rays - once the 
				shell hits our solar system which is 23,000 light-years from the 
				galactic core - is to push interstellar dust into the inner 
				solar system (the dust is normally kept out by the pressure of 
				the solar wind).
 
				  
				The result of this dust is very major, in a 
				number of different ways, including, 
					
					1) increased flaring of the 
				sun in the style of T-Tauri stars 
					2) a downshift toward the 
				infra-red in terms of the solar radiation reaching the Earth 
					3) a significant deviation from normal in terms of the total 
				solar energy reaching the ground 
				The last shell passed the Earth 
				roughly 14,000 years ago, marking the end of the last ice age, 
				and causing all the major physical changes recorded from that 
				time."(from:
				
				
				http://www.etheric.com/LaVioletteBooks/EUF-reviews.html)
 
			Proto-stars which are starting to blow 
			away the gas and dust surrounding them are called T-Tauri stars.  
			  
			The 
			warm dust remaining around T-Tauri stars still radiates in the 
			infrared. There is evidence that the remaining dust and gas 
			surrounding T-Tauri stars form rotating disks which may mark the 
			beginnings of planetary systems. 
 When we say that the sun may begin to behave like a T-Tauri star, 
			this does not mean that the sun transforms into such a star. The gas 
			and dust accumulation that could occur around the sun may cause it 
			to behave like a T-Tauri star which could lead to a significant 
			increase in infrared radiation.
 
 This paper does not explore this theme in depth, but is meant to 
			point the way to further research.
 
			  
			While it is uncertain that minor 
			changes in the sun will eventually lead to major consequences, and 
			while it uncertain that interpretation of Mayan prophecy or 
			prediction is correct, the fact is that evidence exists that earth 
			has gone through periodic catastrophes and extinction events in its 
			history and that major changes in climatic conditions have occurred 
			and will reoccur in the future.  
			  
			Research may reveal to us how the 
			sun has played a role in both catastrophic and extinction events of 
			the past and how, by further solar studies, we may predict the sun's 
			wild weather.
 
			  
			  
			Predictions
 
 Since the last major mass extinction event took place during the era 
			of the dinosaurs in the later Jurassic approximately 65 million 
			years ago, the prediction is that we may be encountering a major 
			cycle soon.
 
			  
			Linda Howe on Earthfiles.com provided this graph to show 
			the paleohistorical extinction cycles on earth. 
			  
			  
			 
			  
			  
			Researchers studying rocks from 
			
			Antarctica have found chemical evidence that a huge meteorite 
			smashed the Earth 251 million years ago and caused the greatest 
			extinction event in the planet's history, killing about 90% of all 
			life. 
			 
			  
			The extinction, which scientists call the Permian-Triassic 
			event, some 185 million years before a similar meteorite collision 
			with planet earth killed of the dinosaurs. Asish R. Basu, a 
			professor of Earth sciences at the University of Rochester (NY), 
			said proof of a massive impact 251 million years ago in the 
			chemistry found in rock fragments recovered on Graphite Peak in 
			Antarctica.
 The latitude in dating these events is such that it indicates that 
			there is a threat zone that the earth passes through that may have a 
			duration of a few million years before and after the crossing of the 
			galactic plane by the solar system.
 
			  
			However a minor cycle such as 
			the precession of the equinoxes and the minor crossing where the 
			celestial equator, the galactic center and the galactic plane cross 
			may have a shorter threat zone in terms of years. If these two 
			cycles conjoin at some point in the near future, it could signal a 
			major cataclysm that would not only destroy a large percentage of 
			life on earth, but probably extinguish unprotected civilization as 
			we know it. 
			 
			  
			One thing is for certain. Our orbiting satellites would 
			not have much chance of survival. 
 To be continued…
 
 
 
			  
			
			References
 
				
					
					
					
					1.
					
					www.sfgate.com  
					
					
					2.
					
					http://www.lxrdesign.com/EXTINCT.htm 
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