Stunning Find Deep in the Pacific Ocean

[kentuck]

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/package.jsp?name=fte/stardust/stardust&floc=wn-np

<snip>
Ancient star dust found deep beneath the Pacific Ocean has led German scientists to make an astounding conclusion. They think it points to our human origins.

Researchers from the Technical University of Munich in Germany surmise that the star dust is likely debris from a supernova explosion that occurred some 3 million years ago, reports Reuters. The explosion rocked the Earth so much that it changed our planet's climate--drastically heating it up--and helped bring about human evolution just as our ancestors started to walk.

<snip>
Five years ago, Korschinek and his team found star dust in Pacific sediments. This time they looked at a site much deeper in the Pacific Ocean near the equator but away from land. At 15,750 feet below the surface, they found a layer of iron-60, which was stable and easy to date. The age? About 2.8 million years old.

Reuters explains that iron-60 is an isotope or chemical variant of iron that is rare on Earth--so rare that scientists are in general agreement that it is unlikely to have come from anything other than a supernova. Iron-60 has a decay rate or half-life of about 1.5 million years, so it's easy to nail down when the star exploded. A bombardment of cosmic rays caused by a supernova explosion could affect the ozone layer, which would have let in more of the Sun's ultraviolet rays. And that would make it hotter and drier on some places on Earth.

[robcon]

1. I don't get it.

How does the "star dust" collision affect climate? I understand that it could heat up the earth, or parts of it, for a time (< a decade?) But I don't get how it affects climate for any longer than that.

[shadowknows69]

2. I'm not someone who would know but

I would think a supernova explosion would result in a sustained bombardment of material thus the long term climate change. Any Astronomer wanna help us mere humans out?





P.S. I could have told them that we are all made of stars. Moby told me. Before that, the Gods showed me.

[Swamp Rat]

3. "My God! It's full of stars!"

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

14. My God, it's full of SARS.

Something a friend said when confronted with a map of eastern Asia during the SARS "epidemic" :)

[scubadude]

7. Here "it" is

Study leader Gunther Korschinek speculates that the supernova may have caused an increase in cosmic rays for about 300,000 years, which would have warmed up the Earth's temperatures. Korschinek can tell that the star explosion occurred at the same time there was a significant climate change in Africa when drier conditions caused the forests to retreat and the savanna to emerge, reports Reuters. It's this major climate change that likely caused the hominids to emerge from the trees and begin to walk upright.


Because of temperature change, trees died out and savannahs emerged. That gave man the impetus to move from the trees to the ground, and begin walking. This led to freed up limbs, arms, which led to us...

Scuba

[burn the bush]

4. proof of the big bang theory?

[robcon]

5. It has nothing to do with the big bang.

This happened 3 million years ago. The big bang happened 10+ billion years ago.

[burn the bush]

9. ahhh, I obviously didn't read the whole article.

[kentuck]

6. more to do with climate changes and speeding up of evolution

on the Continent of Africa, etc..

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. Just more proof

that we are stardust.

[SidDithers]

10. Interesting...

now they need to find iron-60 samples at other locations at about 2.8 milion years old. A supernova explosion would blanket the earth in dust.

Sid

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

15. I would like to take this opportunity to point out...

...that the K-T boundary was identified in much the same way. Most geologic processes are local. Anything like a layer of some particular element that is found globaly and can be correlated to a particular time necessitates either an incredibly powerful event of earth origin, or an event of cosmic origin.

This is really great stuff, though. The implications for evolution of events that are cosmological in origin is a really neat area of science. In my opinion, any place where geology and cosmology cross paths is cool. Very, very cool.

[SoCalDem]

11. I hope Wayne can swim

[Clark2008]

12. And the fundies reaction?

It's "God dust" and it happened 3,000 years ago.

:P

[Rockholm]

13. Their reaction? With fingers in ears? Nothing.