Question about galactic alignment, from an earthly point of view?

Question

I have become interested in all this galactic alignment talk from reading the many different articles. So far what I could find myself was that the last aligment took place during the ending of our last ice age.

But what happend in the one before that?

The reason for my pondering is that if I imagine the alignments as being somewhat like an earthly year where we have summer on one side and winter on the other, what did the earth look like around the alignment before our iceage?

Answer 1

Nothing. Ditto the one before that, and so on and so forth back to the beginning of Earth. We've always been in the same location in respect to the galactic plane since the galaxy itself formed.

What you mention later is a theory that someone came up with. It actually doesn't match the physical evidence (the ancient bones, pollens, stream bed deposits, etc, etc) but this hasn't stopped them from promoting it. Well-meaning folks who haven't googled for info on ice ages may fall into the trap of believing it.

The ice age lasted from about 20,000 years ago to about 10,000 years ago... so would have seen 3 or more of these 'galactic alignments'. Homo sapeins as a species has been around for about 75,000 years or so, meaning that they'd have seen well over 20 of these "alignments". Hominids that are considered human beings have been around for over 5 million years, and so on and so forth on back through history.

Use wikipedia to find 'Malinkovitch cycle'. That will explain ice ages better.

Answer 2

The winter solstice crossed the galactic equator in 1999. In another ~250 years, the ecliptic longitude of Sagitarius A*, the center of our galaxy, will be 18:00, the same as the solstice. These things happen on a cycle of about 25,800 years, due to the precession of Earth's axis. Both events are more astrological than astronomical in significance. You'll probably get a warmer response to your question in the alternative section here or over in horoscopes.

Answer 3

What is a galactic allignment ?? There's nothing to align in it. We orbit the galaxy at pretty much a fixed distance from the center and it has no effect on our weather.