It is supposed to cover more than 80 per cent of all
the matter in the cosmos.
Professor Rampino, from New York University, and associate
Professor Ken Caldeira, from the Carnegie Institution, carried out an investigation
of meteor impacts and exterminations using newly accessible data providing more
precise age estimates.
They found that six mass destructions connected with
the timing of sensitive periods of impact cratering on Earth.
One of the impacts investigated was produced by the
large comet or asteroid that hit the Earth 65 million years ago off the Yucatan
coast of Mexico and is said to be the reason of dinosaur’s extinction.
Five of the six major impact craters accorded with
mass extinction events, said the researchers writing in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Prof Rampino said “The correlation between the
formation of these impacts and extinction events over the past 260 million
years is striking and suggests a cause-and-effect relationship. This cosmic
cycle of death and destruction has without a doubt affected the history of life
on our planet.” According to the scientist the next cycle of this mass
extinction by impact of a space rock is near.
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