Key Messages
Uncovering The Role Of Dark Matter In Mass Extinction Events And The Creation Of Life On Earth
In Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, readers will learn what dark matter is and how it affects our solar system.
Dark matter is an ever-present force in the universe believed to account for most of its mass, yet it has remained largely undetected until recently due to its subtle nature.
It’s been theorized that dark matter could have shaped the development of our own solar system, as well as influenced meteoroids like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs.
This book offers readers a closer look at what dark matter actually is and explores how it can be detected and used to create forces in our universe.
Readers will also discover new insights into how meteors could have played a key role in creating life on Earth, as well as new predictions about huge meteors in future.
Knowing more about dark matter could provide valuable information on why catastrophes like major meteoroid collisions happen with some regularity throughout history – so uncover this mysterious force today!
The Invisible Force Of Dark Matter That Is All Around Us
The truth is, even though dark matter can’t be seen or directly sensed, that doesn’t mean we cannot understand it.
Humans have been able to detect the presence of dark matter by looking at its interactions with gravity.
In the 1930s, when astronomer Fritz Zwicky noticed that the visible mass of stars and galaxies was not enough to account for their gravitational pull, he hypothesized that there must be matter that could not be seen – which he later called “dark matter”.
Since then we’ve come to better understand what dark matter is composed of – in all likelihood, particles that don’t interact with light and don’t have an electromagnetic interaction like atoms or elemental particles.
The amazing thing about these seemingly invisible particles is that they are believed to make up 85 percent of all the matter in universe!
So while it’s true that we might not be able to see dark matter, through its interactions with gravity we can better understand how it shapes our universe.
The Mystery Of Dark Matter: How It Helped Form Our Universe
Dark matter played a significant role in shaping our universe.
From the very beginning, when the cosmos was in its infancy mere 380,000 years after the big bang, dark matter had an undeniable impact on the formation of the universe.
Analysis of cosmic microwave background data has proven that dark matter contains five times the energy of all visible matter and is essential to producing gravitational force to structure a galaxy – something other radiation or gases could not do.
Without it, much of what would have been spread out across our galaxy after the bigbang would have been lost forever.
Dark matter also enabled our own solar system to take shape 4.56 billion years ago when an area of dense gas collapsed and formed our beloved Sun, surrounded by a disc made up of various materials gathered with help from dark-matter’s powerful gravitational pull.
As a result, planets nearest to the sun are composed with those materials which will not combust while those further away like Jupiter and Saturn are larger due to their ability to collect other more gaseous material that would have otherwise gone up in flames without dark matter’s assistance.
The Impact Of Meteoroids On Earth And The Development Of Life
Meteoroids have been hitting Earth for billions of years, and it’s possible that they have played an important role in the formation of life on our planet.
Evidence gathered from fossilized records around the world have shown that there was a surge in the development of complex life forms right after the impacts of meteoroids.
For example, trilobite fossils were found just above chemical deposits that are created during a meteoroid impact in China’s Yangtze Gorge.
Studies also show that meteoroids could be where we get many valuable elements like iron, nickel and carbon, which all contribute to Earth’s amazing complexity and diversity of life.
In fact, scientists suggest that many of these important minerals might have originated from meteorites containing amino acids-the building blocks of both protein and DNA.
Without a doubt, it’s clear that meteoroids have been impacting Earth for billions of years and might have played an essential role in forming the vast variety of life present on our planet today.
Exploring The Mysterious Icy Depths Of The Universe — A Look At Comets, Meteoroids And The Oort Cloud
Unlike the meteoroids that burn up in Earth’s atmosphere each day, comets are quite unique.
When they get closer to the Sun, their frozen contents like helium and ethanol start burning and so a stunning light display is formed around them.
These objects originate from both the Kuiper Belt beyond Jupiter’s region as well as from much further away in the Oort cloud near the edge of our Solar System.
The latter is home to an estimated trillions of objects in total, some large enough for us to call them minor planets or major comets which could have catastrophic effects on Earth if they were to hit us.
Scientists are still trying to explore this area for more answers about what really lies deep within it.
American Projects Are Working To Avoid The Potential Devastation Of Meteoroids In Our Atmosphere
Devastating meteoroids don’t strike Earth often – but recent ones have definitely revealed their destructive potential.
Just look at the 1908 Tunguska meteoroid, which was only 50 meters wide, yet let loose with the equivalent power of a ten to 15-megaton bomb–over 1,000 times stronger than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima!
The sound it created echoed across continents and its shockwave registered as a 5.0 on the Richter Scale.
It destroyed an area of 2,000 square kilometers of forest and depleted around half of Earth’s atmospheric ozone.
This is why scientists pay close attention to Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs), creating a catalog to monitor them for any potential dangerous trajectories that could result in an impact.
Thankfully though, none currently pose immediate threats, such as the recently observed NEO with a 0.3% chance of coming close to Earth until just 2880 – however this figure may vary due to gravitational pulls from other planets influencing its trajectory.
To counteract this kind of threat, US-led initiatives like the Asteroid Impact and Deflections Assessment Mission and Asteroid Redirect Mission are hard at work devising methods which increase or decrease its speed if required – ensuring that any potentially cataclysmic impact can be avoided for good!
The K-Pg Extinction Event: How A 10-15 Km Meteoroid Wiped Out The Dinosaurs
What most people don’t know is that the mass extinction of the dinosaurs was actually one of five major extinction events in Earth’s history.
The first two occurred millions of years ago, with the first transition taking place between the Ordovician and Silurian periods around 440 million years ago, and the second at the end of the Devonian period 380 million years ago.
The third massive extinction event happened 250 million years ago, wiping out around ninety percent of Earth’s species, such as most insects.
Then came another large-scale extinction at the end of the Triassic period 200 million years ago that eliminated more than seventy-five percent of Earth’s species.
Finally, 66 million years ago there was a fifth event: The Cretaceous-Paleogene (or K-Pg) Extinction event.
With this event came evidence in exposed rock formations to show where it hit in time and we can also find evidence from a meteoroid impact.
This is based on diamonds formed from intense pressures during impact and shocked quartz deformations that signify only nuclear bombs or meteoroids are able to cause such changes to rocks.
Through Walter Alvarez’s research studies in the 1970s, scientists were able to determine that iridium levels were higher than normal at this time which predicted an approximate 10 – 15 kilometers large meteorite impacting Earth and bringing with it 500 thousand tons worth of iridium which led to 75 percent global extinction rate including all dinosaur species.
Uncovering The Evidence Of A Planetary Catastrophe: The K-Pg Impact Crater
When a massive meteorite hits Earth, the resulting carnage it wreaks can be devastating.
It’s estimated that a meteoroid 10 to 15 km wide traveling at 20 km per second would cause an explosion with the equivalent power of 100 trillion tons of TNT – more than one billion times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb.
Such an impact would also cause wind and high seas worldwide, as well as tsunamis and earthquakes that could be felt around the globe.
But unfortunately, despite the massive destruction it causes, evidence of such ancient impacts is hard to come by.
Most craters are too old for us to accurately trace them back to their original source, and if a space rock crashes into an ocean or is otherwise swallowed up by natural erosion or other effects, there may be no physical signs of its placement left on our planet’s surface.
Though we have evidence in the K-Pg layer left by Walter Alvarez et al confirming an extraterrestrial event caused global extinction due to its continental shelf bottom strike scenario, this doesn’t help make cosmic disasters easy to find on our ever-evolving landscape.
How Evidence Piece By Piece Led To The Discovery Of The K-Pg Meteoroid Impact Crater
The discovery of the K-Pg meteoroid crater was no easy feat.
It took some serious sleuthing and an amazing team to figure it out.
First, geologists working for a Mexican oil company found odd magnetic disturbances off the Yucatan peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico.
This lead them to conduct a magnetic survey which revealed a circular region about 180 km in diameter.
In 1981, Glen Penfield and Antonio Camargo presented their findings with the evidence pointing to an impact crater, but nobody made the connection at that time.
Fast forward to 1990 when a team from the University of Arizona studied a layer full of shocked quartz and iridium in Haiti, narrowing down the potential impact crater within 1,000 km radius, gathering even more clues for what would become one of science‘s greatest discoveries.
Finally, thanks to Carlos Byars who both remembered Penfield’s previous discovery and pointed it out to Hildebrand and his team, they were able to study core samples drilled by the oil company out of what was later named Chicxulub crater after Chicxulub Puerto near it.
In 1991 their results were finally published in Geology magazine confirming that indeed there had been an asteroid impact 66 million years ago – information without which we wouldn’t know as much as we do today about our planet’s history.
Scientists Find Evidence Of Regular Periodic Comet Impacts On Earth
Scientists studying Earth’s impact craters, fossil records, and extinctions have all pointed to the potential of a regular extinction every 30-35 million years.
This hypothesis began in 1977 when Princeton geologists Michael Arthur and Alfred Fischer first discovered an extinction pattern from their investigations into fossil records.
Then, in 1984, University of Chicago researchers expanded on this theory by suggesting an extinction rate every 27-35 million years based on record data.
Further studies around crater dates have also suggested a form of regularity – the University of Californiain 1984 stated that 11 craters had corresponding 31 million year patterns and Kyoto University’s 2004 study found that 91 craters back 400 million years featured cycles of 37.5 million years.
This data provides evidence that there may be a regularity to extinctions caused by comets; although many suggest these larger impacts come from faster moving, long-period comets originating from the Oort cloud.
The Gravity Of Passing Stars Could Be Responsible For Periodic Comets Leaving The Oort Cloud
When it comes to explaining why comets can potentially leave the Oort cloud and make their way into our solar system, two possible explanations have been put forward.
One of them is related to how our solar system moves through the galaxy – the galactic tide created by the gravitational force of the Milky Way.
This galactic tide elongates the shape of the Sun’s outermost edge – the Oort cloud, which makes objects more susceptible to being pushed further in and primed for something else to come along and send them flying.
The other possibility is that our solar system’s orbital path plays a role.
As it orbits around the Milky Way, it experiences a number of oscillations, one of which would occur every 32 million years when passing through the center of the galactic plane.
It is suggested that during these times, a change in density in this area could contribute to comets departing from the oort cloud.
However, for this to happen some kind of matter needs tp be present that can affect gravity – namely dark matter!
The Possibility Of Self-Interacting Dark Matter Explaining Impactful Comets Hitting Earth
The mystery behind why massive meteoroids hit Earth every 32 million years may have just been solved.
In Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, author suggests that dark matter could possibly explain their unusual distribution.
Is this true? Only time will tell.
Dark matter is an unknown form of energy that affects the distribution of galaxies and recent research indicates that more than one type of dark matter might exist; one being self-interacting dark matter, dark matter that’s attracted to itself and clumps into a higher density.
If this is true for the Milky Way galaxy, it might indicate a smaller but denser disk inside the center of the galactic plane.
This would surely provide enough force to shoot comets out of the Oort cloud and toward Earth when our solar system oscillates through it, which occurs every 32 million years.
We may soon be able to validate or disprove this speculation with data from 2018 received by the GAIA satellite which takes precise measurements of galaxies.
Until then, all we can do is wait and see if this theory matches up with reality!
Wrap Up
The final summary of Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs is that dark matter permeates our universe.
It’s incredibly important, as it has been a major factor in the formation of our universe.
Furthermore, there is good evidence to suggest that it sent meteoroids that contained essential ingredients for life on earth as we know it today.
This book teaches us to better understand the mysterious power of dark matter and its effects on each aspect of our lives.
At its core, this book shows us how this force is inevitable and how its influence will shape all future events in both space and time.
