Ancient Earth Was a Brutal Place

Scientists have been doing some great work when it comes to peering back through billions of years to figure out what ancient Earth would have looked like, and a new study reveals that the earliest conditions on our planet were probably even more hostile than originally imagined.
In particular, researchers now think that we've underestimated the levels of ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the Sun that reached the surface of Earth – and that these levels could have been up to 10 times higher than previously thought during certain periods.
The focus of the research is on the last 2.4 billion years of history, since the Great Oxidation Event (GOE) when oxygen levels in the atmosphere and oceans first started rising from virtually nothing. Not only do the new findings teach us more about Earth's history, they could improve our understanding of the atmospheres on other planets too.
Read Full Article »


Comment
Show comments Hide Comments


Related Articles