NPR has a story about the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. New research from Harvard University proposes that a comet and not a meteor impacted in the Yucatan peninsula. The research is detailed in a paper that was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
For decades, the prevailing theory about the extinction of the dinosaurs was that an asteroid from the belt between Mars and Jupiter slammed into the planet, causing cataclysmic devastation that wiped out most life on the planet.
But new research out of Harvard University theorizes that the Armageddon-causing object came from much farther out than originally believed.
According to this new theory, the devastation came not from a relatively nearby asteroid, but from a sort of long-distance comet that came from the edge of the solar system in an area known as the Oort cloud.
The gravity from Jupiter pulled the comet into the solar system. At that point, according to Amir Siraj, a Harvard student who co-authored the paper with Professor Avi Loeb, "Jupiter acts as a kind of pinball machine."
The theory goes: Jupiter's gravity shot this incoming comet into an orbit that brought it very close to the sun, whose tidal forces caused the comet to break apart. Some of the comet's fragments entered Earth's orbit, and one slammed into the coast of Mexico.
So long, dinosaurs.
