Harvard University scientists and the South-Western Research Institute in Boulder stated that the collisions of asteroids with early earth occurred more often than previously thought, and this slowed down the accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere. This is reported in an article published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Researchers analyzed the remains of ancient asteroids – spherul – and simulated the consequences of their collisions. It turned out that the existing models of planetary bombardments underestimate the frequency of falling on the planet asteroids and comets. According to new data, the strikes took place every 15 million years, which is ten times more than that of current models. Thus, early land was subjected to intense space influences over a long period of time.
The splas are round glass particles arising from the strike of the heavenly body about the earth’s bark. Scientists have discovered that they are in large quantities in several layers of the earth’s crust of 2.4-3.5 billion years. These new layers of spheres have increased the total number of well-known impact events on early earth. The model showed that cumulative effects from the impacts of asteroids of more than 10 kilometers created oxygen leakage from the Earth’s atmosphere.
The results obtained are consistent with geological data, which show that oxygen levels in the atmosphere varied, but remained relatively low in the early Arheaian Eon. Then, there was a serious shift in the surface of the surface, caused by an increase in oxygen levels, which is known as a great oxidative event or an oxygen catastrophe.