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---------------------- 2267 - Extinctions on Earth?
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- Scientists have been studying how supernovae could affect life on Earth. Supernovae are extremely powerful events, and depending on how close they are to Earth, they could have consequences that caused these cataclysmic events. Scientists have specific evidence linking one or more supernova to an extinction event that occurred 2,600,000 years ago.
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- One or more supernovae exploded about 160 lightyears from Earth. At that same time, there was an extinction event on Earth, called the Pliocene extinction. Up to a third of the large marine species on Earth were wiped out at that time, most of them living in shallow coastal waters.
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- The link between the supernovae and the extinction suggests that particles called muons could have caused these extinctions. The evidence is in the fossil record and in a layer of a radioactive type of iron deposited on Earth about 2.6 million years ago. The evidence is also out in space, in the form of an expanding bubble feature created by one or more supernovae.
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- Iron 60 is an isotope of the element iron. An isotope is simply an atom with a different number of neutrons in its nucleus. All iron has the same number of protons. 26 protons and an equal number of 26 electrons. But the number of neutrons can vary. Most of the iron in the universe is iron 56. Iron 56 has a stable nucleus of 26 protons and 30 neutrons. Iron 56 is stable. It is not radioactive and it doesn’t decay.
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- But here on Earth, there’s also some Iron 60 that has an unstable nucleus containing 26 protons and 34 neutrons. It is radioactive and decays down to eventually becoming nickel. There is Iron 60 residue at different times throughout the geological record, with a big spike at about 2.6 million years ago. However any iron 60 that was part of Earth when Earth formed would have long ago decayed down to nickel. There would be no trace of it left today. Supernovae are the only thing that can create iron 60 and spread it out through space, it has to be from a supernova.
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- There’s another piece of evidence supporting this theory, a giant bubble out in space called the Local Bubble, a hollowed-out cavity in the interstellar medium. The interstellar medium is the matter and radiation that exists in the space between star systems within a galaxy. It is basically gas, dust, and cosmic rays, and it fills in the space between solar systems in the galaxy.
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- The “Local Bubble” is a shape that has been hollowed out of the interstellar medium by one or more supernovae. Our Solar System is inside the Local Bubble as are stars like Antares and Beta Canis Majoris.
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- When a supernova explodes, the shock wave clears out the gas and dust in its area, creating a bubble. The bubble is not completely empty, there’s some very hot and very low-density gas left in it. But most of the gas clouds are gone.
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- Our Local Bubble is a giant region about 300 light years long. It is basically very hot, very low-density gas with nearly all the gas clouds having been swept out of it. Both the Local Bubble and the Iron 60 supports the occurrence of multiple supernovae causing the Pliocene extinction.
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- When the supernovae spread iron 60 on Earth, it wasn’t the only thing that came raining down from space. There were also muons. Muons can best be describe as “heavy electrons. We are constantly receiving muons from space, most of them pass right through us harmlessly, with only the odd one interacting with us and making up part of the radiation we are constantly bombarded with. About one-fifth of our radiation dose comes by muons.
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- When the supernovae exploded there would have been hundreds of times more muons than that coming from normal background radiation. For larger animals with larger surface areas, that means a much greater exposure to this radiation.
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- When this wave of cosmic rays hits us we get increased mutations and cancer. The cancer rate would go up about 50 percent for something the size of a human. For an elephant or a whale, the radiation dose would be much higher.
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- Since the deeper an animal is in the water, the more protected it is, the extinction for larger marine animals in shallower coastal waters goes way up. The Megalodon was one of the largest and most powerful predators ever to live on Earth. It was an ancient shark as large as a school bus that went extinct 2.6 million years ago. They just disappeared about that time. So, we can speculate it might have something to do with the muons.
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- There may be other reasons for its extinction, including the cooling of the oceans as a result of an ice age. The sea levels would also have lowered during an ice age, meaning that the species lost good nursing areas.
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- The Megalodon wasn’t the only species that went extinct during that time. The extinction of other marine animals including mammals, seabirds, and turtles occurred at the same time. It could be that the supernovae caused a surge in ultraviolet light to strike Earth, killing small creatures at the base of the food chain, and that in turn led to larger marine animals dying off.
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- When is the next supernova about to occur? Could we be due for another mass extinction? Only time will tell. I promise not to write about it.
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- February 10, 2019
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-------------------------- Monday, February 11, 2019 --------------------------
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