Was a Supernova the Cause of a Great Extinction?

A supernova explosion 359 million years ago may have led to a mass extinction of life on Earth. What happened?

The cause of the Devonian period extinction 359 million years ago, ranked as one of the five great extinctions of life on Earth, remains a mystery. Now, a new study reveals the explosion of a nearby star may have triggered one of the greatest extinction events in the history of our planet.

The Devonian period began with nearly all the landmass in the world concentrated into two large supercontinents, Gondwana and Euramerica. These two bodies would later go on to form the single world-continent Pangea.

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Tiny, rootless plants blew across the dry land. Over the course of 60 million years, this era saw the rise of the first plants with seeds, plants utilized true wood in their structures for the first time, and tiny wingless insects, similar to mites, first made their appearance. By the late Devonian, trees with true roots were thriving, and plants had evolved to reproduce through the spreading of seeds.

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