Harvard’s most controversial astronomer has a new theory about the space rock that took out the dinosaurs. He’s saying there’s reason to believe it came from farther afield than previously assumed.
Loeb and Harvard University astrophysics undergraduate student Amir Siraj argue in a new study published Monday in Scientific Reports that the Chicxulub Impactor, which ended the rule of the thunder lizards, originated from the edge of our own solar system.
“The solar system acts as a kind of pinball machine,” Siraj explains in a statement. “Jupiter, the most massive planet, kicks incoming long-period comets into orbits that bring them very close to the sun.”
A popular theory about the demise of the dinos says the impactor likely originated from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but Loeb and Siraj use statistical analysis and gravitational simulations to calculate that more Earth impactors actually originated from the far-off Oort cloud where most long-period comets hail from.
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