Word: supernova
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Another theory is that supernovae did the dinosaurs in. During the last thousand years, say Astronomers V.I. Krasovsky and I.S. Shklovsky of the Soviet Union, at least five supernovae (exploding stars) have been visible from the earth. Starting with this information, they calculate that every 200 million years or so a supernova explodes not more than 26 light-years (156 trillion miles) away from the earth...
...explosion is quite an event; for a couple of weeks the supernova gives as much light as 200 million suns. The Russian astronomers do not think that a brief burst of light from a supernova 26 light-years away would have much effect on the earth. Much more serious, they think, would be the vast amount of cosmic rays streaming out of the wreckage of the shattered star. For a few hundred or thousand years after the explosion, the number of cosmic rays hitting the earth would be many times greater than it is today...
Siege of Rays. Cosmic rays are held responsible for many of the genetic mutations that make sudden changes in the heredity of plants and animals. So if cosmic rays increase because of a nearby supernova, mutations will probably increase in proportion. Since most mutations are harmful or even deadly, the effects on some forms of life might be disastrous...
Right Answer. To check the theory, Miller got help from Astronomer Walter Baade of Mt. Wilson and Palomar, who computed the phase and position of the moon at the time when the supernova could first have been seen in Arizona. The answer came out right. The moon was a crescent, as drawn. In northern Arizona it would have risen shortly before dawn on July 5th, and the supernova would have been close to it. The sight must have been striking; the supernova was probably the brightest object, other than the sun, ever to be seen by historic...
Properly cautious, Miller says: "The rather stringent conditions for a favorable answer seem to be met and strongly suggest the possibility that the two pictographs actually depict . . . the supernova...