Earth, born 4.6 billion years ago, was a gathering of meteorite dust from the early solar system, which under the action of gravity, constantly accretized and collided with each other, eventually forming an early primitive Earth.
Later, after a long evolution of the primitive earth, the most primitive single-celled organisms appeared, and then these single-celled organisms evolved from simple to complex, from low to high, step by step of destruction and rebirth, and finally multiplied into the prosperity we see today.
According to scientists, in the entire history of the earth, organisms have experienced five mass extinction events, they are, The Ordovician period, the Devonian period, the Permian period, the Triassic period and the Cretaceous period, almost every event has brought a large number of organisms to the road to the brink of destruction, and we are talking about the Ordovician biological mass extinction event today
Known as the second Paleozoic, the Ordovician is divided into early middle and late periods, with extinction events occurring in the Late Ordovician period, about 440 million years ago, when nearly 85 percent of all species were wiped out, the second highest of the five mass extinctions. At this point, many people may wonder what is the cause of this event and why so many organisms have gone extinct
We know that other extinction events are generally related to natural disasters or meteorite impacts caused by Earth, but the Ordovician mass extinction is different. Scientists speculate that the ordovician extinction may have been caused by gamma-ray bursts in the universe
Gamma-ray bursts are the strongest bursts in the universe, producing intense gamma-ray bursts when a massive star explodes toward death or two dense objects merge.
His duration is short, usually between 0.1 seconds and 1000 seconds, but the energy released is equivalent to the sum of the energy released by the sun in 10 billion years! The energy of a single photon can reach hundreds of thousands of times that of the sun's photons, and it can destroy the life of the universe in the range of tens of light years!
For example, on December 14, 1997, a gamma-ray burst detected 12 billion light-years away, the energy released in only 50 seconds is equivalent to the radiation energy of the Milky Way for 200 years, and it is conceivable how strong the energy of the gamma-ray burst is.
Some people think that the reason why we have not found extraterrestrial life so far may be that gamma-ray bursts have blocked the evolution of life in the universe, making life so rare that they are not found now.
In 2005, scientists at NASA and the University of Kansas pointed out that the Ordovician 440 million years ago was likely hit by a gamma-ray burst 6,000 light-years away, and although it was relatively far away from us, it was right on Earth. As a result, the Earth's ozone layer was destroyed, and high-energy rays in the universe bombarded a large number of organisms in the oceans, causing the ecological circle and the food chain to almost collapse!
At the same time, when gamma-ray bursts dissociated the ozone layer, they also combined to form a large number of toxic gases, which blocked the sunlight and made the world cold, and then sank to the surface, and the creatures were once again persecuted by harmful gases and died, and eventually about 85% of the species were extinct!
I can't imagine that a gamma-ray burst that erupts 6,000 light-years away can produce such a powerful force, and if it is said that within a few decades of light, then the consequences of the earth will be unimaginable!