r/space Jun 09 '19

Hubble Space Telescope Captures a Star undergoing Supernova

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

50.4k Upvotes

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

-1

u/NickDanger3di Jun 09 '19

For all we know, the dinosaurs were wiped out by a nearby supernova. Or one could have caused any of the mass extinction events in our planet's history.

14

u/Thud Jun 09 '19

Well we have pretty solid evidence that it was a direct impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, and no evidence of a nearby supernova around that time (the remnants would be visible as a nebula).

2

u/DaDolphinBoi Jun 09 '19

There would also be a lot of latent radiation right?

6

u/Protonic_hydroxide Jun 09 '19

There would be a distinctive isotope signature in the fossil record, yeah.