What Killed Dinosaurs Could Happen Again?

It was a celestial object that triggered the catastrophic “impact winter” responsible for wiping out almost three-quarters of life including dinosaurs from earth, concluded Harvard astronomers. With this theory, the claim to have resolved the mysteries of the “Chicxulub impactor.”

Jupiter was responsible for that catastrophe

Jupiter is important because of its massive size. There is an icy debris at the edge of our solar system. The comet that removed dinosaurs originated in that region and Jupiter sent it to earth. The study further said that the earth could expect similar situation in every 250 million to 750 million years. The study compares Jupiter with a pinball machine kicking those incoming long-period comets into orbits and closer to the sun.

What are these long-period comets?

comet-that-removed-dinosaurs

The study mentioned Oort cloud made up of icy pieces of debris of the size of big mountains. It is a giant spherical shell enveloping the solar system like a bubble. And it is this region that sends long-period comets to the orbit. Long-period comets are also called sungrazers as they go too close to the sun. And they take almost 200 years to orbit the sun.

These long-standing comet face sun’s heat while doing their orbit and break into pieces due to the heat impact. That pieces when reach earth could create Chicxulub size impactor, the event that killed dinosaurs.

Astronomers cheered opening of Vera Rubin Observatory

Situated in Chile, the laboratory is expected to be operational next year and astronomers are hopeful of monitor the tidal disruption of long-period comets and check whether anything bad could happen to earth.

Source:- https://bit.ly/37mwzBQ

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