Extinction Of Dinosaurs :: essays research papers

Could an exploding feature have been responsible for the death of the dinosaurs? This sentiment has become popular again as an explanation for the disappearance of thedinosaurs. An exploding whiz can blast material enormous distances into space. Ifthis material reached Earth&8217s atmosphere, changes may have occurred that wereharmful to life. We call an exploding star a supernova. Nova is the Latin word for new, and inancient times, when an exploding star was observed, people often theory a newstar was being born. The plural form of nova is novae. So when we talk of more than angiotensin-converting enzyme supernova, we say supernovae. When a star has use all it&8217s nuclear fuel, the gravitational storm that pullsthe star&8217s material towards it&8217s center no longer has an opposing force to actagainst it. As a result the star collapses. A star that once had eight times as muchmatter as our sun and was 1,000,000 miles across, becomes a sphere only ten tofifteen miles across . As the star collapses, very small particles (called neutrinos)escape into space. After the star becomes a very small sphere, it explodes like agiant nuclear die and becomes a billion times as bright as our consume sun. All kindsof matter and ray of light are blasted into space. This matter and radiation travelsthrough space at nearly the speed of light (186,000 miles per second)Now, if one of these supernovae were to occur within about one hundred thirty light yearsof Earth, just about scientists feel that life on earth would be drastically affected.Since a light year is the distance light travels in one year, 130 light years is about760,000,000,000,000 (760 quadrillion miles). So, suppose a supernova had occurred sixty-five billion years ago within 130light years of Earth, how just now would it practice the death of the dinosaurs? Somescientists think neutrinos and galactic cosmic rays would cause extremely high