{"id":209472,"date":"2025-03-22T02:19:12","date_gmt":"2025-03-22T07:19:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/powerful-supernovas-led-to-at-least-2-mass-extinctions"},"modified":"2025-03-22T02:19:12","modified_gmt":"2025-03-22T07:19:12","slug":"powerful-supernovas-led-to-at-least-2-mass-extinctions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/powerful-supernovas-led-to-at-least-2-mass-extinctions","title":{"rendered":"Powerful supernovas led to at least 2 mass extinctions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<p><iframe style=\"display: block; margin: 0 auto; width: 100%; aspect-ratio: 4\/3; object-fit: contain;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NVxpdf6Vk5E?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope;\n   picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At least two mass extinction events in Earth\u2019s history were likely caused by the devastating effects of nearby <a href=\"https:\/\/earthsky.org\/astronomy-essentials\/definition-what-is-a-supernova\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">supernova<\/a> explosions. That\u2019s according to a new study by researchers at Keele University in England. The researchers <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/news-releases\/1076684\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> these super-powerful blasts \u2013 caused by the death of a massive star \u2013 might have previously stripped our planet\u2019s atmosphere of its ozone, sparked acid rain and exposed life to harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun. They believe a supernova explosion close to Earth could be to blame for both the late <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Late_Devonian_extinction\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Devonian<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Late_Ordovician_mass_extinction\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ordovician<\/a> extinction events, which occurred 372 and 445 million years ago respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At least two mass extinction events in Earth\u2019s history were likely caused by the devastating effects of nearby supernova explosions. That\u2019s according to a new study by researchers at Keele University in England. The researchers said these super-powerful blasts \u2013 caused by the death of a massive star \u2013 might have previously stripped our planet\u2019s [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":715,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-existential-risks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/715"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=209472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/209472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=209472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=209472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=209472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}