https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4g4g455p8lo
"A huge meteorite first discovered in 2014 caused a tsunami bigger than any in
known human history and boiled the oceans, scientists have discovered.
The space rock, which was 200 times the size of the one that wiped out the
dinosaurs, smashed into Earth when our planet was in its infancy three billion
years ago.
Carrying sledge hammers, scientists hiked to the impact site in South Africa to
chisel off chunks of rock to understand the crash.
The team also found evidence that massive asteroid impacts did not bring only
destruction to Earth - they helped early life thrive.
“We know that after Earth first formed there was still a lot of debris flying
around space that would be smashing into Earth,” says Prof Nadja Drabon from
Harvard university, lead author of the new research.
“But now we have found that life was really resilient in the wake of some of
these giant impacts, and that it actually bloomed and thrived,” she says.
The meteorite S2 was much larger than the space rock we are most familiar with.
The one that led to the dinosaurs’ extinction 66 million years ago was about
10km wide, or almost the height of Mount Everest.
But S2 was 40-60km wide and its mass was 50-200 times greater.
It struck when Earth was still in its early years and looked very different. It
was a water world with just a few continents sticking out of the sea. Life was
very simple - microorganisms composed of single cells."
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
