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66 million years ago, a huge body collided with planet Earth, causing many aspects of life to become extinct, including dinosaurs, and the prevailing belief was that this body was an asteroid, but a new theory suggested that it was in fact part of a comet, its source is at the edge of the solar system according to “the French press agency”.
A study published by the journal “Scientific Reports” estimated the size of the large piece to be about seven kilometers, indicating that it was caused by the explosion of an Oort cloud comet, a “debris cloud” located very far from the limits of the solar system.
Before the comet partially collided with what is known today in the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula at Chicxolub, it was being pushed towards the sun by the gravity of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system.
Lead author of the study, Amir Serraj, an astrophysics student at Harvard University, explained that Jupiter in this case behaves “like a game of pinball” or “pinball” and sends comets described as “to long range “to” orbits that bring them. very close to the sun. “
When comets are exposed to the sun’s enormous gravitational pull, “the larger ones explode and break down into more than 1000 fragments.”
Amir Siraj explained that each of these shards, which could project one of them towards the ground, “is likely to be large enough to cause an event similar to the one that led to the annihilation of the dinosaurs.”
To come to this conclusion, the two scientists who conducted the study simulated gravity using data available on the Oort cloud and the movement of the planets.
“Asteroids are dry rocks in the solar system that are slower than comets, which are often compared to dirty snowballs or icy rocks on the outskirts of the solar system, and that ice that the sun heats up forms the tails of comets that you can see in the sky, ”says Saraj.
The most popular theory to date was that the body that led to the disaster 66 million years ago originated from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
But study co-author, Harvard University professor Avi Loeb, said the frequency of these asteroids colliding with Earth is “at least ten times lower” than that which allows them to ‘collide with the planet.
Amir Serraj noted that “the frequency of asteroids colliding with Earth is slightly higher (than the frequency of comets), so there is a tendency” to attribute it to the extinction of the dinosaurs, but what n has not been taken into account, is that the explosion of comets produces a large amount of flying fragments.
“Our theory shows that more massive comet fragments may be a more compelling reason for this rate,” he added.
There is another evidence that is poured into the realm of the two worlds theory, namely that the Chiccholub crater was the result, as is known, of an object made of carbon chondrite.
It is known that only around 10% of asteroids store this component, while some evidence indicates that it is more abundant in comets.
The professor revealed that the new telescope at the “Vera Rubin” observatory, which is due to start operating next year in Chile, could allow him to monitor the gravity of comets.
He explained that this “will be very important;” It will allow the development of forecasts for the next 100 years, allowing us to know if something bad could happen to the planet. “
Calculations by the study’s authors showed that part of a comet can strike Earth at a rate of hundreds of millions of years, and so there is no risk of this happening in the short term. especially in relation to asteroids.
Nonetheless, Avi Loeb pointed out that these calculations are based only on statistical data, and therefore “may never be known” when the next comet fragment collides with Earth.
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