NATURE -- 7 Worst Days on Earth

7 Worst Days on Earth

Information taken from the documentary "7 Worst Days on Earth" by the History Channel and pictures taken from Google Images.

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Since the beginning of its time the Earth has suffered a lot. Its evolution was, since it was formed after the Big Bang until what we recognize today, difficult with mass extinctions, meteorite impact, among others. In this post I will talk to you about the 7 worse days that the Earth has lived and briefly explain what happened and how it has influenced the Earth to be what it is today.

We think we have horrible days, stuck in traffic, a day of tiring work, storms, but nothing compares, not even close, to the Worst Days of the Earth.

7# The Theia Impact

Life had not even had a chance to emerge when an intruder threatened to collide with us. The early Earth was bombarded with meteorites. After being formed and was still very unstable, a planet, Theia, came in collision course and was succeeded by a massive collision of worlds. Imagine a corps with 10% of the mass of the Earth collide with this last. Whatever there was in this young Earth was destroyed and changed by this event. The material that was projected to the space created a system of rings (as seen on Saturn) that later gave rise to the moon and the rest crashed on Earth. Although the "day" had been catastrophic, it gave rise to a very important part in the evolution of life, the Moon stabilized the rotation axis of the Earth. The opposite would be bad for climate stabilization. Without this there would be life on Earth?

6# The Late Heavy Bombardment 

When everything looked like it was calm with the events described above, the Earth found itself in the crossfire. 150 million years later, and is believed to have existed oceans already, the crust was solid again and perhaps existed the earliest forms of life, something terrible took everything back to square one. The planets further from the Sun saw their orbits oscillate and freed millions of Kuiper Belt asteroids that crashed on the planets. The moon has many craters that confirm it. But the upside of this is that this bombardment brought precious metals like silver, platinum and gold.

5# Snowball Earth

After facing hell, move forward in time the Earth faced the worst cold ever. Ice covered the land and threatened to end its life in the meantime formed. Ecuador was as cold as the South Pole is today. It happened twice. This environment is extremely cold, windy and dry, making it impossible for life to thrive. The first was 2.4 billion years ago. Scientists believe that the guilty was the life, because at the beginning the most abundant gas was methane, which warmed the atmosphere. The first organisms  began to perform photosynthesis and release a gas, oxygen, which oxidized methane and became carbon dioxide. Some life died in an event called the Great Catastrophe of Oxygen. And because of the lost methane that warmed the atmosphere, the planet froze. But as deep volcanism released heat from below the surface created cracks where life may have survived and consequently forced the ice to retreat. The most important for our existence was the second 600 million years but both were followed by the flourishing of new species. Life survived and came back stronger than ever.

4# The Ordovician Extinction

100 million years later developed the greatest mystery of all extinctions. 99% of all species that once roamed the Earth, have already disappeared due to five giant mass extinctions. The first was this and its 450 million years old and is also the most mysterious. At this time the planet had three great oceans and four continents. The first was pulsed of life and the first fish and corals lived in them. After a cataclysm swept these oceans, 60% of life disappeared. There are two explanations. The first is that the planet cooled again in an Ice Age. However, some scientists accepts the one that speaks about a burst of gamma rays coming from the cosmos, which resulted in the destruction of 1/3 of the ozone layer. With this, the radiation could enter and since it is very lethal, it annihilated life. May also have destroyed the oxygen and nitrogen, which have created a cloud of nitrogen dioxide that blocked the light and took the planet to an Ice Age. But another possibility is a bow shock that forms when there is compression material on an object that is moving. Our galaxy moves quickly through space and can compress gases intergalactic ahead, (as if pushing it forward)  warms it and creates the cosmic rays that may eventually reach the Earth. The solar system oscillates up and down on the galaxy each 64 million years and is exposed to these rays.

3# The K-T extinction (The Extinction)

It is the most discussed and famous mass extinction, one that wiped out the dinosaurs and allowed us to form. But the idea of ​​a meteorite impact has been rocked by new ideas. 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs ruled the world, something happened that wiped out two thirds of all living creatures including these. The most accepted theory is the overall impact of an asteroid the size of Mount Everest on the Yucatan Peninsula. This triggered an unstoppable destruction across the globe. What led to the extinction was the side effects of this as a darker atmosphere and acid rain. Others say that the constant volcanic eruptions that followed from millions of years before the impact may have been an aggravating factor of all. According to others the earth 65 million years ago was hit not by one but by several asteroids and what struck Yucatan was not the worst. But if all this had not happened mammals would not grow and we would not exist.

2# The Great Dying

This was the mother of all mass extinctions and happened 250 million years ago. There were only reptiles and marine animals, but then 90% of life disappeared. The main suspect was a super volcano that opened a huge rift in Siberia. It continually erupted for at least a million years. Cracks were open and projected lava everywhere, like a hose that would kill everything in its path. This caused a dramatic increase in global temperature and proved to be catastrophic for most of life. But if the plants live in an environment of carbon dioxide, why then succumbed? Another suspect under investigation is the presence of large amounts of hydrogen sulfide gas which, combined with the heat yielded the highest extinction of all.

1# The Solar Apocalypse

It is as certain as death that this will happen. Within 5 billion years our Sun will end its life. When its nuclear fuel ends it will unfold a catastrophe. It will become a red giant star, 200 times larger than its original size, and swallow the planets one by one until its Earth's time. But there are good  and bad news. 

The good is that humans will not be there, the bad is that they will not be there because they were incinerated long before. Each of the five billion years the sun increases its intensity by 10%. The first time all the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will disappear and all the plants and organisms that need it will not survive. The oceans will evaporate and dry. All combined will bring destruction to the planet. In about 500 million years ago all the animals will be extinct. But there are many more disasters unfold.

It makes you think, huh?

Vany Sampayo