Distant asteroid calamity shaped life on Earth 466 million years ago, scientists say

This illustration shows a giant asteroid collision between Mars and Jupiter that occurred 466 million years ago and produced the dust that led to an ice age on Earth. Don Davis/Southwest Research Institute/Handout via REUTERSThe cataclysmic asteroid impact off Mexico’s coast that doomed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was not the only time an astronomical event shaped the history of life on Earth.

The event, occurring when life was concentrated in the seas and far before vertebrates first walked on land, set in motion evolutionary changes in invertebrates fundamental to marine ecosystems as they adapted to global cooling, they said.The inner solar system was filled with enormous amounts of dust after an asteroid more than 90 miles in diameter was struck by a smaller object perhaps 12 miles wide, the researchers said.

Another cooling mechanism was that the iron-rich meteoritic dust fertilized large parts of the ocean surface leading to increased plankton productivity and drawdown of atmospheric carbon dioxide, added Birger Schmitz, a geology professor at Lund University in Sweden and lead author of the research published in the journal Science Advances.

After noting the dinosaur-demise event caused by an asteroid perhaps 6 miles wide, Schmitz added, “For the first time, scientists can now present another example of how an extraterrestrial event formed life on Earth.”

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