Mankind’s most important 30 seconds
You’re probably reading this on your comfortable bed, wrapped in a warm Pendleton blanket. A half empty Noritake coffee mug is sitting on the nightstand. Or you’re probably going out in your Porsche. With your driver at your service, your spoilt self is at liberty to read (you own a Porsche and you’re not driving it? What are you even doing?). No matter what you’re doing right now, no matter where you’re headed and no matter who you are, 30 seconds of one day, sixty-six million years ago, would have changed more things for you than your overly-comfortable mind could fathom.
As soon as you read “sixty-six million years ago” anywhere, one of the most prominent things that pops into your head is, yup, dinosaurs! Not necessarily backed by hard facts, but could be because it sounds very prehistoric and dinosaur-ey. But actually that is when these magnificent creatures got wiped out from the face of the Earth, ending the Cretaceous period and marking the beginning of the Paleogene. Many scientists believe that an extraterrestrial object such as an asteroid could have collided with the Earth, causing its debris to deprive The Earth of solar energy, destructing photosynthesis and wrecking the food chain. This has ultimately caused one of the five biggest mass extinctions known to mankind; the extinction of dinosaurs.
Now here’s the interesting part; Have you ever crept out of your comfort zone and wondered as to what would have happened (or rather, “not happened”), had the asteroid never impacted the Earth? If you have ever wondered, you would by now have a rough idea of what the world would have become. But did you know that there had actually been a chance of that happening? A BBC documentary titled “The day the dinosaurs died” shed light on the news that, had the asteroid been half a minute late, it would have most probably landed deep in the Atlantic or Pacific ocean, instead of, just off the Mexican coast. If this happened, the vaporization would have been much less and this would have caused far, far less damage than the asteroid actually caused. This would also mean that the dinosaurs would have survived.
Professor Sean Gulick of University of Texas has stated that the asteroid impacted Earth in “a very unfortunate place”. You would think otherwise, though; No matter how important dinosaurs might be to professor Sean Gulick to forget the weight of his own existence, it is not so for you. Because the documentary also revealed that if the dinosaurs survived the impact, humans would probably never exist! Not just humans, but a lot of other mammals who exist today would not have evolved, and dinosaurs would still be ruling the Earth! 30 seconds was all it took to determine everything you have ever known, everything you have ever done, and everything you have ever become (depressed already?). And you used to love dinosaurs when you were a kid; They used to walk the face of the Earth in your dreams. Well now you know that if these nasty creatures survived, You might as well be drinking your Noritake-mug coffee in a dinosaur’s wild dream.
Can you see through all the facts and science in here? A 30 second change, sixty-six million years ago, would have meant that everything you see around you wouldn't exist. Everything mankind has worked for, from the Porsche that you don’t even drive, to the Pyramids in Egypt that you’re too busy to visit, wouldn't exist. Forget the big things if you must; everything, from that friend you never visit, to the Christmas or New Year which you are too busy to celebrate with your family, wouldn't even exist, if this object that didn't even have anything to do with our planet came 30 seconds late or early. Really makes you value it all, doesn't it? And then think, if this has happened before, then it sure as hell could happen again. And no matter how hard humans will try to be protected, something they love, they value or they need, in some corner of the world will be destroyed and gone forever. Why then, do we live as if we are here for good? We’re not. And now we know that we wouldn't even be here to live that way, owing to 30 small seconds that would have prevented our entire evolution.
I don’t know about you, but I know now how important it is to value and protect what is here, to value and protect what is to come, and be constantly conscious of the fragility of our place in the universe.
