The theory that dinosaurs died instantly when a massive asteroid hit Earth and lit up the sky may not be the way things happened, according to a new study. Asteroids have hit Earth before and will hit again, it’s only a matter of time. Today, NASA follows asteroids more closely, and new asteroids are discovered every day.
NASA, ESA and the Japanese Space Agency and many other organizations are working on asteroids and even landed on asteroids. Scientists think that these asteroids are remnants from the first days of the emergence of the Solar system. Asteroids can appear in all sizes, shapes and orbits. Some call them the building blocks of life because they are believed to seed the planets with water and organic molecules. NASA’s new DART mission is also trying to grasp the basic science needed to prevent an asteroid from hitting Earth.
A new study claims that the asteroid that crashed into Earth 66 million ago killed many life forms instantly, but the majority later perished. This research says that the mass extinction of 70% of all life on the planet was caused by the darkness that followed the impact. The sky was blocked by a dense cloud of ash, soot and particles that blocked the sun for two years. Dinosaurs and thousands of species of the age also perished in a long and dark night.
Peter Roopnarine of the California Academy of Sciences Division of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology presented the new study at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Roopnarine, Live Science. He told com that the theory of a long cold night is not new. However, only recently have simulations and models been able to prove this theory sound.
Roopnarine says entire food webs and local environments collapse in just a few days when sunlight is lost, inhibiting photosynthesis. Clouds of shattered rock and sulfuric acid from the meteorite impact covered the sky in what’s known as the negative loop cycle. This caused temperatures to drop significantly and produce rain. The pouring rain was somewhat acidic, encouraging forest fires.
The scientists modeled 300 fossil species and ran simulations to determine how long the darkness would have to last before 70% of them went extinct. While most species disappear in just a few weeks, it took at least two years of darkness to reach 70% of them. Furthermore, the study revealed that after 200 days of darkness, the community will reach a breaking point where there is no recovery.
In the Gulf of Mexico near the Yucatan Peninsula, the 150-kilometer-wide crater left by the Cretaceous shocking asteroid is still visible to NASA from the International Space Station. It cannot be denied that this event was a complete disaster. But it turns out, at least according to this new theory, the real dinosaur killer was the long, cold night that followed the asteroid. . .
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