Dust cloud sparked explosion in primitive life on Earth, say scientists
Smashing of monster asteroid half a billion years ago thought to have caused mini ice age
Ian Sample
@iansample
Wed 18 Sep 2019 14.00 EDT
Last modified on Wed 18 Sep 2019 23.26 EDT
An enormous dust cloud that swept through the ancient solar system sent Earth into a mini ice age that sparked an explosion in primitive life on the planet, scientists say.
The space dust was created when a monster asteroid was smashed to pieces in a violent collision somewhere between Mars and Jupiter nearly half a billion years ago.
The destruction of the 93-mile-wide space rock scattered so much dust into the inner solar system that it blocked some of the sunlight falling on Earth, the researchers claim. As a result, temperatures dropped for at least 2m years.
Because the cooling occurred over such a long time, life on Earth had time to adapt. And while many species carried on unaffected in the warmer spots near the equator, others evolved to make the most of the world’s freshly-formed colder regions.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/sep/18/dust-cloud-sparked-explosion-in-primitive-life-on-earth-say-scientists
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