This hypothesis about the cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs believes that the culprit of the catastrophe at the end of the Cretaceous was not an asteroid but a comet. Some scientists believe that the sun has a companion star that rotates around it. Every 20 to 30 million years, this companion star will move very close to some large comets. The interference of these huge comets by the gravitational pull of this companion star is likely to produce tens of thousands of comet storms in the solar system, some of which have hit the earth. Therefore, the earth will be plundered every 26 to 30 million years, and the creatures on the earth will also experience a major extinction event every 26 to 30 million years. The extinction of the dinosaurs is nothing more than this. Just one in a series of cyclical extinctions.
Specific to the dinosaur extinction event, different scientists believe that the consequences of a comet hitting the earth are different. American scientist Anders believes that the result of the impact was a large fireball with a temperature as high as 3,000 degrees. This fireball rapidly expanded outwards, causing forest fires in North America and Asia, burning all living things to ashes. The basis for Anders's hypothesis is that he found that carbon ash content in sediments 65 million years ago was 10,000 times higher than in other rock formations.
Xu Jinghua, a Chinese-Swiss scientist, believes that the devastating impact of this comet impact on life on earth is much more serious than the mere extinction of the dinosaurs. The energy of the big explosion formed by the comet impact was so great that it caused global dust to obscure the sun. Toxic substances polluted the entire earth's ecosystem, turning the entire ocean of the earth into a sea of death. At the same time, some compounds were released in the air after the explosion. It dissolved with water vapor and formed torrential acid rain, which further damaged the earth's ecosystem and ultimately resulted in the extinction of a large number of biological species, including dinosaurs.
So how did Professor Xu Jinghua arrive at his theory? What is his scientific basis? This is exactly what our "Dinosaur Museum" is introducing to you step by step in the column "Learning Scientific Processes and Scientific Methods - How did geologists arrive at the 'Comet Impact Theory'?" Please continue to pay attention to that column Column!
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