Traces of a giant meteorite that hit the Earth 3 billion years ago have been discovered, causing the oceans to boil.

Arab Weather - More than 3 billion years ago, a giant meteorite collided with Earth, and this event may have had unexpected benefits for the emergence of primitive life on our planet. Space rock collisions are usually associated with destruction, as in the case of the extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago when a 10-kilometer-wide asteroid collided with Earth, causing massive natural disasters.

Earth before collision

When the S2 asteroid struck 3.26 billion years ago, Earth was a young and very different place. According to Nadja Drapon, an assistant professor at Harvard University, the asteroid was 50 to 200 times more massive than the asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Earth at the time was a sea-floored world, with few islands and oceans filled with iron, which gave the waters a greenish hue.
At that time, life on Earth was limited to single-celled organisms such as bacteria and archaea. The oceans were so nutrient-poor that some scientists described them as “biological deserts.” However, the meteorite impact appears to have added elements that enriched the environment of these organisms.

Collision events and effects

When the S2 meteorite hit, global chaos ensued. A massive tsunami swept across the planet, and the heat from the impact was enough to boil the upper layer of the ocean. The dust from the impact also covered the sky, blocking out sunlight for several years, affecting the life of microorganisms.
Despite the catastrophe, the impact did deliver nutrients like iron and phosphorus to the oceans. Laboratory analyses have shown an increase in single-celled organisms that feed on these elements after the impact, which could change scientists’ understanding of how early life responded to such catastrophic events.

Impact evidence from geological rocks

To search for evidence of the impact, the research team studied rocks in the Barberton Makungwa Mountains in South Africa. These rocks contain geological evidence of eight meteorite impacts, and are home to tiny particles called spherites, which are formed when large meteorites hit Earth. This evidence allowed them to reconstruct the sequence of events that accompanied the S2 impact.
The impact of the meteorite was not limited to the immediate environmental disaster. After the chaos subsided, nutrients settled into the oceans and contributed to the growth of microorganisms.

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