Where did the’Chicxulub collider’, which fell on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico about 66 million years ago, and extinct three-quarters of the animals and plants on the ground, including dinosaurs, came from?
This collider made a large collision ball with a diameter of 150 km and a depth of 20 km on the shore of Chiksuluv.
Until now, the hypothesis that it came from an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter has been most strongly accepted.
However, a new hypothesis has been suggested that a long-period comet from the end of the solar system’Ort Cloud’ approached the sun and the fragments collided.
According to Harvard University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), a research team led by astrophysicist Abraham Robb is using statistical analysis and gravitational simulation to show the possibility that the Chiksulub collider is a fragment of a long-period comet. The research results were published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports.
The Orth Cloud is a group of hypothetical celestial bodies believed to surround the end of the solar system like a shell, and its origin is known as a long-period comet with a solar orbit of more than 200 years.
The research team found that the long-period comet from here becomes a so-called’sungrazer’ that passes through the sun while being pushed from its original orbit to the close orbit of the sun due to the influence of the gravitational field of Jupiter. As a result, it was analyzed that the tidal force was created and eventually suffered a’tidal destruction event’ (TDE).
The research team analyzed that about 20% of long-period comets become sunglazers, which were pointed out to be consistent with research results of other astronomers.
The research team also estimated that as long-period comets are fragmented in the process of returning close to the sun, they are ten times more likely to collide with the Earth.
“Basically, Jupiter acted like a pinball game,” said Amir Shiraz, the first author of the dissertation, who is simultaneously taking a master’s degree in piano and a master’s degree in astrophysics at Harvard along with a master’s course in piano at the New England Conservatoire. “There is a statistical possibility that the comet’s fragments, which are pushed into very close orbits and split by the sun’s tidal destruction, could hit the Earth.”
The research team suggested that the Ciksulub-class collision spheres formed on Earth have the components of the collision of a carbonaceous chondrite (C-chondrite) collider that contains a large amount of carbon compounds, supporting the hypothesis that comet fragments collide rather than asteroids. .
Long-period comets contain mostly carbonaceous chondrites, while the asteroid belt’s asteroids contain only about a tenth of this.
The largest collisions in Earth’s history that were formed in Breadport, South Africa about 2 billion years ago, and the Kazakhstan Zamanshin collisions, which were identified as the largest among those created in the last millions of years, are all collision balls made by carbonaceous chondrite colliders.
The research team believes that the comet fragmentation hypothesis could be verified through further research on these collisions or other collision spheres on the moon. The telescope of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which will operate from next year, also reveals the tidal destruction of long-period comets. He added that it could be observed.
“You’ll see fragments of long-period comets from the Ort cloud coming to Earth more often,” Professor Rob said. “You can test this hypothesis by getting more data and statistics on long-period comets and observing more evidence. I hope to be there.”
He said that understanding the comet fragmentation theory is not only important in solving the mystery of Earth’s history, but will also be a pivotal point in determining whether such events will threaten Earth again.
International Team [email protected]
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