Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Impacts from these comets could trigger a mass extinction of life on Earth. These disruptive encounters are estimated to occur an average of once every 45 million years. [28] There is a 1% chance every billion years that a star will pass within 100 AU of the Sun, potentially disrupting the Solar System. [29]
The most famous of these mass extinction events — when an asteroid slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, dooming the dinosaurs and many other species — is also the most recent. But ...
An extinction event (also known as a mass extinction or biotic crisis) is a widespread and rapid decrease in the biodiversity on Earth. Such an event is identified by a sharp fall in the diversity and abundance of multicellular organisms .
Extinctions are a normal part of the evolutionary process, and the background extinction rate is a measurement of "how often" they naturally occur.Normal extinction rates are often used as a comparison to present day extinction rates, to illustrate the higher frequency of extinction today than in all periods of non-extinction events before it.
Dresbachian extinction event: 502 Ma: End-Botomian extinction event: 517 Ma: Precambrian: End-Ediacaran extinction: 542 Ma: Anoxic event [45] Great Oxygenation Event: 2400 Ma: Rising oxygen levels in the atmosphere due to the development of photosynthesis as well as possible Snowball Earth event. (see: Huronian glaciation.)
More significantly, the current rate of global species extinctions is estimated as 100 to 1,000 times "background" rates (the average extinction rates in the evolutionary time scale of planet Earth), [71] [72] faster than at any other time in human history, [73] [74] while future rates are likely 10,000 times higher. [72]
Strong extinction in Earth's atmosphere of some wavelength regions (such as X-ray, ultraviolet, and infrared) is overcome by the use of space-based observatories. Since blue light is much more strongly attenuated than red light, extinction causes objects to appear redder than expected; this phenomenon is called interstellar reddening. [5]
Gamma-ray bursts are very bright as observed from Earth despite their typically immense distances. An average long GRB has a bolometric flux comparable to a bright star of our galaxy despite a distance of billions of light years (compared to a few tens of light years for most visible stars). Most of this energy is released in gamma rays ...