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1-Page Summary of Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs
Overview
Lisa Randall’s book, “Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs”, proposes a dark-matter model for why dinosaurs went extinct. The book also describes how cosmic events affect life on Earth.
Dark matter is a force that’s present in the universe and only interacts with ordinary matter through gravity. It can’t be seen, but it explains why some structures are bound together when there’s no other obvious explanation for their existence.
Dark matter has existed since the beginning of the universe. It attracted ordinary matter together to form stars, which formed in disks that eventually formed planets and other objects. Some asteroids are near earth while others exist in an outer belt or a cloud far from Earth’s gravity. They may have introduced water and amino acids to Earth, but they don’t pose much risk of collision with our planet because they’re so far away from us.
There have been five mass extinctions on earth. The dinosaurs were eliminated during the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, which was caused by a meteoroid collision. Evidence includes iridium and other rare elements found in clay layers at the K-Pg boundary, as well as magnetic patterns and wave models that point to Chicxulub crater in Mexico as the location of this collision.
Although dark matter does not fit into the Standard Model of particle physics, and it has yet to be directly detected, data from the GAIA satellite suggests that a thin, concentrated disk of dark matter exists in our galaxy. This could dislodge Oort cloud objects and send them toward Earth. One of these may have been the meteoroid tied to the K-Pg extinction.
Key Takeaways
Dark matter is an invisible form of matter that exerts gravitational force on ordinary visible matter. It cannot be seen or touched, but it has been discovered through indirect observation.
Dark matter is present in the universe. It’s probably five times more than ordinary matter, and it was likely responsible for forming stars.
There are many asteroids and clouds in the solar system. The Oort cloud is so far away from the sun that it’s barely affected by its gravity.
Earth has been hit by 10,000 near-earth asteroids in its past. Some of them have fallen into the planet’s atmosphere and caused damage on the surface. Large collisions are more difficult to predict than smaller ones. It is possible that comets seeded Earth with water and amino acids necessary for life to begin here. In fact, Earth has experienced multiple extinctions in its history, including one that was likely caused by a meteoroid impact that created the Chicxulub crater; this discovery was made through analysis of elements found at the K-Pg boundary and geological studies of the crater itself.
Dark matter may have its own electromagnetic force and form a thin, dense disk within the Milky Way galaxy. Self-interacting dark matter may be behind some problems with galaxy structure.
Every 32 million years, the solar system wobbles through a dark matter disk. This causes meteoroid strikes (and possibly extinction events).
Key Takeaway 1: Dark matter is invisible and affects ordinary matter only through gravity. It is probably not accounted for in the Standard Model of particle physics, and was discovered by indirect observation.
Scientists have a theory that there is something called dark matter, which they haven’t been able to detect with their instruments. They think it’s the reason why galaxies are moving in ways that can’t be explained by the visible matter alone. The most likely explanation for this phenomenon is an additional mass of some kind that doesn’t interact with light and only exerts gravitational force on other objects.
