Dr. LaViolette, who is currently president and chief researcher of the Starburst Foundation, was the first to demonstrate that cosmic rays from a galactic core explosion penetrate far outside a galaxy's nucleus to bombard solar systems like our own residing in the spiral arm disk. He coined the word "galactic superwave" to refer to such a cosmic barrage. He has shown that galactic superwaves recur at long intervals and arrive at Earth's doorstep without warning because they travel at near light speed.

Galactic superwaves are a recent discovery. During the early 60's astronomers began to realize that the massive object that forms the core of our Galaxy (the Milky Way), periodically becomes active.⁽⁹⁾ The cores of all spiral galaxies cycle through a similar phase. During its active period, our galactic core spews out a fierce quasar-like barrages of cosmic rays, with a total energy output equal to hundreds of thousands of supernova explosions.^{(10, 11)} In some galaxies these active emissions have been observed to equal the energy from billions of supernova explosions.

Until recently, astronomers believed these eruptions were very infrequent, occurring every 10 to 100 million years.⁽¹⁰⁾ They also believed the interstellar magnetic fields, in the Galactic nucleus, would trap the emitted particles in spiral orbits causing them to reach the Earth very slowly.⁽¹²⁾ For these reasons, many did not believe that Galactic core explosions posed any immediate threat to the Earth.

However, in 1983 Paul LaViolette presented evidence to the scientific community indicating that:^{(2 - 4)}

1. Galactic core explosions actually occur about every 13,000 - 26,000 years for major outbursts and more frequently for lesser events.
   
   
2. The emitted cosmic rays escape from the core virtually unimpeded. As they travel radially outward through the Galaxy, they form a spherical shell that advances at a velocity approaching the speed of light.

Astronomical discoveries subsequently confirmed aspects of Dr. LaViolette's hypothesis. In 1985, astronomers discovered that Cygnus X-3, an energetic celestial source of cosmic rays, which is about the same distance from Earth as the Galactic Center (25,000 light years), is showering Earth with particles, traveling at close to the speed of light, moving in essentially straight paths.⁽¹³⁾ Later, scientists found the Earth is impacted, at sporadic intervals, with cosmic rays emitted from the X-ray pulsar Hercules X-1 (about 12,000 light years distant).^{(14, 15)} The intervening interstellar medium has so little effect on these particles, that their pulsation period of 1.2357 seconds, is constant to within 300 microseconds.

These findings are reason to be gravely concerned about the effects of a Galactic core explosion because they imply that the cosmic rays generated can impact our planet, virtually without warning, preceded only by the wave-flash from the initial explosion.^{(1, 2, 6)} Astronomical observations show the last major Galactic core explosion occurred as recently as 10,000 to 15,000 years ago.^{(16, 17)} Data obtained from polar ice core samples show evidence of this cosmic ray event as well as other cosmic ray intensity peaks from earlier times (Figure 2).^{(1, 18)}

Figure 2. Demonstration that cosmic ray intensity has varied considerably during the past hundred twenty thousand years. Lower profile: Cosmic ray intensity at the Earth's surface calculated from variations in the concentration of beryllium-10 in the ice record adjusted for changes in ice accumulation rate. Upper profile: Global temperature. Climatic zones include: the present interglacial (1), last ice age (2, 3, & 4), previous semi-glaciated period (5a-d), last interglacial (5e), and previous glaciation (6).

[An explanation of how this cosmic ray intensity profile was calculated from published beryllium-10 data is presented in the update to Dr. LaViolette's dissertation and in the appendix of a paper preprint available for download.]

Also Dr. LaViolette's prediction that there is a residual flow of interstellar dust currently entering the Solar System from the Galactic center direction was later verified by data collected from the Ulysses spacecraft and by AMOR radar measurements made in New Zealand.⁽⁸⁾

For a listing of related theory predictions and their verification click here.

Today, tomorrow, next week, next year. . . sometime in the coming decades. . . our planet could once again be hit by an intense volley of Galactic cosmic rays. It will come cloaked and hidden from us, until the very moment it strikes. We live on the edge of the Galaxy's volcano. Knowing neither the time, the magnitude, nor the severity of the next eruption or its impact on our environment, we stand unprepared to deal with this event, much less anticipate its arrival.