How painful was the extinction of the dinosaurs? The 2-kilometer-thick rock formation tells you that its experience is beyond your imagination

As early as the Neolithic Age, the ancients had discovered dinosaur fossils in the strata. There are records related to dinosaur fossils in the ancient Greeks, ancient Egyptians and other ancient civilizations, including the emergence of dragon totems in my country. At present, some scholars believe that it may be born out of dinosaur fossils.

But at that time they didn't know it was a dinosaur. The concept of dinosaur first appeared in 1842 when British biologist Richard Owen discovered dinosaur fossils and determined that they did not match the various large animals in the world. , he coined the word "dinosaur", and the new biological concept of "dinosaur" appeared.

After more than 100 years of research, it has been determined that dinosaurs lived in the middle of the Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous, and ruled the earth for 150 million years. However, these once giant beasts were almost completely extinct 65 million years ago, and research on the reasons for the extinction of dinosaurs has been ongoing, and the following two hypotheses are currently the most recognized.

>>Meteorite impact hypothesis

In 1980, American scientists Alfrez and his son discovered a large amount of iridium elements in the bottom layer 65 million years ago, and iridium elements mainly appeared in extraterrestrial meteorites. Therefore, the meteorite impact theory was born, and the process is as follows.

65 million years ago, a meteorite with a diameter of about 10 kilometers flew into the inner orbit of the solar system and went straight to the earth, knocking the American continent out of a giant crater with a diameter of more than 100 kilometers. Its power is equivalent to 1 billion of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. times more. The high heat generated by the explosion directly swept away the animals and plants in a radius of thousands of miles, and countless dinosaurs gasified directly in the high temperature without pain.

The impact also triggered an earthquake with an intensity of more than 10, which is equivalent to more than 1,000 times the intensity of the Wenchuan earthquake. The strong earthquake caused the sky to collapse and a large number of dinosaurs fell directly into the abyss of the ground fissure. At the same time, the earthquake also triggered a global tsunami. The waves reaching a height of 100 meters turned countless dinosaurs into patties and died in pain.

The most terrifying thing is that the explosion directly raised a large amount of explosion ash into the stratosphere above 10 kilometers. These ash mixed with the sulfide produced by the explosion and the fire stayed in the stratosphere, causing sunlight to be blocked or reflected. As a result, the global temperature dropped sharply, plants lost sunlight and warmth, and they died. The disappearance of producers triggered a chain reaction in the global ecosystem, and consumers all died. What finally emerged is the extinction of the dinosaurs.

>>Supervolcano Hypothesis

In fact, the supervolcano hypothesis and the meteorite impact hypothesis are not completely independent hypotheses. According to scientists' research, a lava layer with a thickness of nearly 2 kilometers has been found in the Indian strata, which shows that there has been a super volcanic eruption in India.

According to research, there used to be a string of supervolcanoes in India. 65 million years ago, when the meteorite hit the earth, the global earthquake triggered directly activated the Indian supervolcano (volcanoes in other regions also erupted as a result), and began to eject a large amount of volcanic gas. This process lasted for nearly 50 years. For 10,000 years, the total energy is equivalent to 2 million times that of the well-known "tsar hydrogen bomb"!

Massive amounts of volcanic ash and sulfide washed into the stratosphere, causing not only sun shading, but also global acid rain, which further killed plants and animals. Imagine, even a dinosaur far away from the meteorite explosion point and the volcano, suddenly found that the sky has darkened and it has not cleared for hundreds of thousands of years, and the acid rain is constantly falling from the sky, constantly eroding the skin, and he is in pain. is unimaginable.

>>Space Weather Hypothesis

But according to the latest research, there is also a dinosaur extinction hypothesis, which is the "space weather" hypothesis. This hypothesis is simply caused by the attack of the extrasolar high-energy particle beam into the earth. According to observations made by the Hubble telescope, there is a companion star in Sirius (hereinafter referred to as "Little Sirius"), which is a white dwarf star 8.65 light-years away from us.

Low- and medium-mass stars will evolve into red giants in their old age, and red giants will "grow" white dwarfs in their cores. When white dwarfs are formed, red giants will explode again and again, throwing out all the gaseous shells of red giants. , and then leave the inner core to form a true white dwarf.

And these gaseous shells that are thrown away will diffuse into outer space at a very high speed. And Sirius began to breed white dwarf star cores about 120 million years ago, began to throw away its gaseous shell 70 million years ago, and swept the entire solar system 65 million years ago.

This dense stellar fog envelops the entire inner circle of the solar system, and the entire solar system becomes a sauna, which is continuously heated by the dense stellar fog of Sirius, causing the earth's temperature to rise by about 17 degrees Celsius in a short period of time. After cooling down, the dense fog fell onto the earth's surface, and the heavy ones hit the earth directly, while the lighter ones floated in the stratosphere, causing the earth to suddenly cool down again. This drastic climate change eventually led to the extinction of the dinosaurs.

In general, the most recognized cause of the extinction of dinosaurs is still the meteorite impact theory, but the latest "space weather hypothesis" has found more and more evidence, and may directly challenge the status of the meteorite impact theory in the future.

But no matter what the reason is, the once brilliant dinosaurs have all died out. The most important thing for us to study this matter is to prevent the extinction of dinosaurs from happening to humans again. However, in terms of current technology, if the above three disasters occur on the earth, human beings have no ability to solve them. This shows that human beings are insignificant under the vast universe, but some people in human beings are still keen on war and infighting. Among them, I have to say that it is quite stupid.