A meteorite 200 times bigger than the dinosaur-killing asteroid helped life on Earth flourish

The devastating impact of global news has, in a sense, destroyed part of the world. A case in point is the massive asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and nearly three-quarters of the plant and animal life on Earth approximately 66 million years ago.

The time epoch when asteroid strikes were much more frequent.

Impact S2 struck Earth during a period when only basic, single-celled organisms were present, and the consequences of the collision, which happened off the coast of Cape Cod, may have consequentially spurred the growth of bacteria and archaea, driving a significant increase in their populations.

What this study suggests is that these effects would have had a positive influence on life, particularly in its early stages, potentially even creating conditions in which life could thrive.

Scientists from Harvard, led by Dr Drabon, made this significant discovery in the Barberton Greenstone belt in South Africa. Despite great care, the team collected rock samples and their researchers chemically examined and analysated the various isotopes of carbon found within the rocks. Their findings gave Dr Drabon a clear understanding of the events surrounding the impact that occurred around 3 billion years ago, when an object known as S2 collided with Earth.

"Tomorrow is a new day, and with it come differing view points and experiences. For Susan, life will be entirely unchanged, as her daily routine will continue uninterrupted, whereas her physics professor, Deepak, will be reflecting on a pivotal moment in the history of the Earth. At ten o'clock he was lecturing on absorptive and reflective surfaces in open systems. None of his students noticed anything as the meteorite burst through the atmosphere. Even with their eyes raised to the sky, oblivious to the celestial visitor they struggled to grasp the difference between dispersed wave plates and reflectors.

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Picturise yourself standing in a tranquil area offshore of Cape Cod, where the shallow water creates a low-energy environment with minimal currents," said Drabon. "Then, in a split second, a massive tsunami is unleashed and rapidly reshapes the sea bed.

The impact of the meteorite into the Earth's atmosphere would have scattered debris everywhere, creating a dense veil of dust that would have obstructed the sun's rays, thereby stopping simple life forms from converting sunlight into energy through photosynthesis. Nevertheless, certain types of bacteria managed to weather this dreadful period and quickly recovered from the impact. The researchers also speculate that single-celled organisms reliant on iron and phosphorus as a food source witnessed explosive population growth in the aftermath of this calamitous event.

It is likely that the intense population spikes of specific unicellular life forms were fostered by the upwelling of iron from the deep ocean and its subsequent transportation to shallower waters by the tsunami. Excessive phosphorus would most probably have been generated by the erosion of terrestrial areas and a boost of phosphorus delivered to Earth by the comet S2.

Our team proposes that the iron-consumption microbes would initially have thrived immediately following the S2 impact, although only for a relatively brief period. This change in favour of iron-metabolising bacteria is one of the essential elements in the grand puzzle of life's origins.

This is the eighth discovery of an asteroid impact in the area Drabon's research took place. It was largely due to the physically demanding efforts by Drabon and colleagues as they surveyed mountain passes in search of sedimentary evidence from early meteorite showers that had embedded into the ground and been preserved over time.

There are the tsunamis and other massive catastrophes that could aid us in learning more about our dear planet Earth.

The research conducted by the team was published in the journal on October 21.

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