A Supernova Explosion 2.6 Million Years Ago May Have Triggered a Mass Extinction of Marine Life on Earth

Supernova’s Cosmic Rays Likely Wiped Out Marine Life on Earth 2.6 Million Years Ago

Cosmic rays dangerous to man reached the Earth from a supernova that occurred 150 light-years ago. some 6 million years ago, same leading to the global extinction of most of the marine species that included the Megalodon. Scientists argue that cosmic ray muons produced by the supernova raised cancer risks, primarily in big sea organisms. One of these extinction events happened accompanied by abundance of radioactive iron-60, which is indicative of supernova activity. This discovery stands contrary to prior hypothesis and theories and brings a new perspective on the effects of space happenings on the life on earth.

After reading the article, a Reddit user received over 167 upvotes with the comment: The research bases much of the biology of extinct animals and the occurrence of supernovas on what may be still unproven hypotheses, with much of this calculation presented as hypothesis More importantly, there is no clear evidence of a supernova explosion with right type at the right moment. This article will amaze you by linking a cosmic explosion on extinctions of ancient earth.

Supernovae, the last moments and the final bursts of activity of very large stars, can influence their immediate environment. One such supernova the light of which reached Earth 2, is located about 150 light years away from the Earth. 6 million years ago. A long time after the luminous star was gone, particle radiation from it hit and changed Earth. A research team led by Adrian Melott of the University of Kansas has now suggested that this cosmic bombardment might be directly connected to mass extinction of the large marine animal including the megalodon currently believed to have lived in the world’s ocean during the time. Their conclusions have been reported in the Astrobiology journal.

Melott on his part opines that “supernovae have probably reached Earth from time to time. ” The precise time and consequences of these events have not been definitively established. Still, in the paper the team offers to consider a “newly documented marine megafaunal extinction” related to the emergence of a potentially lethal radiation storm, that can be connected to the arrival of a supernova and a mass extinction.

In the coastal waters, where radiation would have reached deeper into shallow waters, 35 of the 100 most diverse genera of marine life became extinct at the Pliocene-Pleistocene boundary. “We have indication of nearby [supernova] events in that epoch,” Melott said. “They could be computed in terms of their impact on earth and compared to the existing records to deduce what happened at that time. ”

Incoming!

The killer radiation was in the form of cosmic rays, mainly associated with moving muons which are about 200 times the mass of an electron, said Melott. “They are very penetrating,” he said ‘Normally there are a lot of them passing through us Many of them pass through without any harm yet as much as 20 percent of the radiation dose passes through by muons. ”

But how were the grains sorted under other conditions, for instance, when the wave was made from material from a supernova? A charge is expected to be few hundred more muons when this cosmic ray wave attacks. Melott said that while very few of them will communicate in any way, such high energy and a great quantity produce mutations and cancer. The team worked out that the hazard level would increase to roughly human level for the risk of cancer on the basis of the rates of muons that would reach earth from the stellar explosion. Though, interestingly, in larger animals, that overall effect would have been larger as well, I suppose? ‘But if you apply that same dose rate to an elephant or a whale, the dose increases many times,’ he said. Because high-energy muons can transmit at least several hundred yards into water, they could have rained on the coastal areas where the extinctions were alleged to have taken place, effectively firing at the animals that inhabited those waters as if with bullets.

Finding the Source

Determining the origin of the radiation wave was the last step among the proposed steps. Iron-60, a member of the iron Rare earth isotope group and which has a half life of approximately 2. 6 million years, has long since decayed away on Earth. As a result, any of the remaining iron-60 seen in today’s world can effectively have preserved its extraterrestrial origin, having arrived through a supernova wave. Large iron-60 peak was found, which was deposited about 2. Such minerals as fullerenes discovered on meteorites that are estimated to be 6 million years old indicate that material from a supernova occurred got to Earth during that time.

As for the origin of the supernova, our Sun can be found in what astronomers call the Local Bubble, which is a rather vast cavity, or void of the interstellar medium. This Local Bubble is a 300 light-year-wide region of hot, rarefied gas, which lies within a shell of cold, dense gas of the ISM. Supernovae have been blamed for carrying with them the various bubbles within the galaxy such as the local bubble through uttering radiation that cleared matter and heated the remainder of the gas.

A sequence of the supernovae – among them one presumably exploded near the Earth 2. The Local Bubble, which may have formed 6 m years ago, still contains a layer of radioactive material. What is more, the Local Bubble itself may have boosted the density of cosmic rays incoming from space and thus made such impacts much more deadly. Melott’s further says that bubble boundaries could have reflected cosmic rays towards Earth, causing for each supernova a 10,000 to 100,000-year cosmic – ray bath. He also hypothesizes that cosmic even rays could have been in circulation in the Local Bubble for millions of years if a number of supernovae were to occur sequentially over millions of years.

This theory draws quite a nice correlation between a more heavily covered major extinction and the supernovae that radically changed our local part of galaxy. “In fact, there has been actually never any good theory which would explain the marine megafaunal extinction,” Melott said. “This could be one. ”

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