Supernovae may have contributed to mass extinction on Earth 359 mn yrs ago: Study

Team Udayavani, Aug 22, 2020, 5:02 PM IST

Researchers claim that multiple star explosions, supernovae, may have led to one of Earth’s mass extinction 359 million-years-ago

According to CNN, The collective events resulted in the loss of 70 to 80 percent of all animal species present during the Devonian, largely affecting marine life

A new study led by the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign astronomy and physics professor Brian Fields explores the possibility of astronomical events being responsible for an extinction event that occurred 359 million years ago, at the boundary between Devonian and Carboniferous periods.

They studied that particular time because those rocks contain huge number of generations of plant spores that appear to be sunburnt by UV light.

The paper has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.