The solar system appears to have been traveling through the molecular remnants of ancient supernovae for the past 33,000 years, at least according to the presence of a rare type of iron that shouldn’t even exist on Earth. Born in the fiery collapse of massive stars as they explode into supernovae,read more

Although we’re familiar with Earth’s major extinction events being caused by calamities such as large asteroid strikes or severe disruptions to the planet’s climate, researchers have uncovered evidence that the recently-discovered mass extinction of large marine mammals toward the end of the Pliocene 2.6 million years ago may have been caused by one or more nearby supernovae that bathed the Earth in deadly radiation.
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