Have you heard about an asteroid shower? Do you know what it is? Let’s find out.

Over the course of Earth’s ancient history, our planet has been subjected to be many cosmic events. They have greatly influenced life on Earth. For example, an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.

Scientists have found another such life-changing event in the Earth and Moon’s past. They found that a massive asteroid shower hit both the Earth and the Moon 800 million years ago.

This huge shower had asteroids that were much larger than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. In fact, they were between 30 to 60 times larger!

This impact occurred before the Cryogenian period (which was between 635 million and 720 million years ago). This was when Earth was covered in icy deserts. This was an era of great environmental and biological changes.

For this study, Japanese scientists examined images of the Moon taken by the Kaguya lunar orbiter. They found that an enormous asteroid, at least 100 km in diameter, broke up and hit the Earth and Moon.

However, as Earth has little evidence left of such an impact, they studied about 60 large craters on the Moon instead.

The massive asteroid shower would have had an important impact on life on our planet. For example, it delivered large amounts of phosphorus. This could have promoted more algae growth on Earth. Other elements in the asteroid also could have influence marine life and Earth’s climate system.

What a video below on meteor showers:

 

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