I've already shared today's top astronomical news in Happy Summer Solstice 2014! It's time to pass along all the space and astronomy stories I collected for Overnight News Digest: Science Saturday (Fathers Day). First, Becky Oskin of LiveScience reports on an ancient disaster in Russia's Popigai Meteor Crash Linked to Mass Extinction.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — New evidence implicates one of Earth's biggest impact craters in a mass extinction that occurred 33.7 million years ago, according to research presented here Wednesday (June 11) at the annual Goldschmidt geochemistry conference.Apophis Day may be postponed until 2068, but it is coming. We should be prepared.
Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles precisely dated rocks from beneath the Popigai impact crater in remote Siberia to the Eocene epoch mass extinction that occurred 33.7 million years ago. Popigai crater is one of the 10 biggest impact craters on Earth, and in 2012, Russian scientists claimed the crater harbors a gigantic industrial diamond deposit.
The new age, which is later than other estimates, means the Eocene extinction — long blamed on climate change — now has another prime suspect: an "impact winter." Meteorite blasts can trigger a deadly global chill by blanketing the Earth's atmosphere with tiny particles that reflect the sun's heat.
Follow over the jump for the rest of the week's space and astronomy news.
