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Comment by sliken | Hacker News Reader

I believe the solar system actually cycles from below the plane of the galaxy to above the plane of the galaxy. I've heard numbers between 25M years and 40M years. Debris on that plane could shake comets loose from the oort cloud. Other theories on dark matter support the idea that crossing through dark matter could increase the temperature in the cores of planets, leading to increased seismic activity.

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Those are good points. Maybe it does have to do with our galactic orbit.

In addition to the galactic orbit the disk itself has it's own local gravitational pull that keeps stars in the plane by pulling up/down when a stars trajectory takes it below/above the local disk. When we are out of the plane we loose the protective cover all the shielding the disk provides from the galactic core (electrons go zing). When in the middle of the disk there is a higher density of mater to interact with (rocks go boom). Our typical exposure to "orbits" earth & moon tends to be that they are roundish flat & smooth and we might be tempted to think the suns orbit around the galactic core is smooth, but it may be better to think of us as also bobbing up and down the highth of the disk as we go.

That's an interesting way to visualize it. As usual, every phenomena is more complex the more you dig into it.

> Other theories on dark matter support the idea that crossing through dark matter could increase the temperature in the cores of planets, leading to increased seismic activity.

Source? That’s fascinating, almost beyond belief, and I’d love to dig into related research.

Seen various versions of this around: https://astronomy.com/magazine/2019/07/dark-matters--shadowy...

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