- Aaron Rodgers emerges from darkness retreat with latest on 2023 decision, vows it will come ‘soon enough’ CBS Sports
- Out of darkness, Aaron Rodgers says decision on future coming soon ESPN
- NFL combine: Jets, Raiders, Packers stuck in holding pattern as league awaits Aaron Rodgers’ decision Yahoo Sports
- Aaron Rodgers Speaks Publicly For First Time Following Darkness Retreat, Gives Update On When He’ll Make A Decision BroBible
- Packers’ Aaron Rodgers finishes retreat, addresses future: ‘I don’t want to drag anybody around’ NFL.com
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Darkness
Errors & Omissions: Everything We Got Wrong about Aaron Rodgers’ Darkness Retreat | Rich Eisen Show – youtube.com
- Errors & Omissions: Everything We Got Wrong about Aaron Rodgers’ Darkness Retreat | Rich Eisen Show youtube.com
- Aaron Rodgers is starting his darkness retreat this week — and he might film it CNN
- What is a darkness retreat that Aaron Rodgers is about to experience? And why is the Packers quarterback going on one? Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
- The Aaron Rodgers “Darkness Retreat” Breakdown You Didn’t Know You Needed | The Rich Eisen Show The Rich Eisen Show
- A voyage into the darkness with Aaron Rodgers FOX Sports
- View Full Coverage on Google News
A moment of global darkness on December 6
Konstantin Bikos and Graham Jones originally published this article at Timeanddate.com on December 1, 2022. Reprinted here with permission. Edits by EarthSky.
A moment of global darkness
For just a moment on December 6, nearly 9 in 10 people worldwide will simultaneously experience nighttime.
A few months ago, our number crunchers fact-checked (and partially confirmed) an internet claim that 99% of the world’s population gets sunlight at 11:15 UTC on July 8. This left us wondering: What about the opposite situation? At what precise instant do most people experience nighttime?
Like last time, we fed our computers with timeanddate’s sun data for 2022 and population data from the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University. We then calculated population data for the day, the night, and the three twilight phases for every minute of every day of the year.
Here’s what we found out.
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December 6: Most people in nighttime
According to our calculations, the moment of maximum darkness happens at 19:56 UTC on Tuesday, December 6, 2022. At that instant, the sky will be completely dark for about 85.92% of the world’s population. At that moment, night reigns across the three most populous continents: Asia, Africa, and Europe (with very minor exceptions).
How can it be nighttime for almost everyone?
Just like at any other moment, the sun will illuminate one half of the globe at 19:56 UTC on December 6. The other half will be dark, and people living there will experience nighttime.
The reason why so many people will be in darkness is that the world’s most populated areas will be on the night side of Earth at that moment. That includes nearly all of Asia, which is home to about 60% of all humans.
Meanwhile, the Americas, New Zealand, and most of Australia will be bathed in sunlight. However, while being huge landmasses, relatively few people live there. North and South America combined only make up about 13% of our worldwide population.
Two twilit runners-up
While it’s nighttime for most people on December 6, there is also a case to be made for both December 21 and December 27 as alternative moments of maximum darkness.
You see, our computers spit out December 6 as the result only when we ask them to adhere to the strictest definition of nighttime. This definition says the sun must be at least 18 degrees below the horizon.
If the angle is less than 18 degrees, it’s twilight. That’s the time in the morning and in the evening when indirect sunlight brightens the sky to some degree.
December 27: Feels like night for most people
The thing is, the darkest of the three twilight phases, astronomical twilight, is hardly discernible from the night. The sun is between 12 and 18 degrees below the horizon during that twilight phase. And the sky is so dark that it feels like nighttime.
When we allowed our algorithms to include astronomical twilight, they calculated 19:39 UTC on Tuesday, December 27, 2022, as the moment of peak darkness.
According to our numbers, 86.11% of the world’s population experiences either nighttime (85.23%) or astronomical twilight (0.88%) at that instant.
That’s roughly 15 million more people compared to the number we calculated for December 6. Still, it hardly moves the needle on a global scale: The difference accounts for a mere 0.19% of the world’s population.
December 21: Most people without direct sunlight
The second alternative instant of peak darkness takes into account all twilight phases, including nautical and civil twilight. During those two phases, the sky is noticeably brighter. However, there’s still no direct sunlight.
Applying this loose definition of darkness, we arrived at 21:44 UTC on Wednesday, December 21, 2022, as the moment when most of us are not in the daytime.
We calculated that this affects 88.14% of the world’s population. Nearly 9 out of 10 people on Earth!
What’s so special about those dates?
We weren’t particularly surprised that all the dates fall in the northern winter. Most people reside north of the equator, and December is the month when the least amount of sunlight reaches the Northern Hemisphere.
But why does the number of people in darkness (or quasi-darkness) peak on those dates? Why does nighttime affect more people on December 6 than on, say, December 5?
It all depends on how well the shape of the region affected by nighttime and twilight overlaps with the world’s most populated regions. That shape changes very slightly from one day to another as the sun moves southward before the December solstice and northward again after the solstice.
On the dates we found, it simply matches the contours of the world’s population centers slightly better than on the day before or after.
But again, the difference is very, very small. Case in point: According to our calculations, the number of people experiencing night at 19:56 UTC on December 6 is 6,665,450,571; precisely 24 hours earlier, it’s 6,665,326,866. That’s a difference of 123,705 people, a tiny margin on a global scale.
Finding the precise minute
As for the time of day when most people experience darkness, it’s basically when Asia, Africa and Europe are on the night side of Earth.
During that time of the year, that happens every day at 19-something UTC. That’s when night has just fallen in Europe. It’s also when the first sun rays of the new day have not yet reached the far east of Asia.
That said, you probably noticed that the time we calculated for December 21 (21:44 UTC) falls out of line. That’s because the inclusion of nautical and civil twilight makes for a larger geographical area. An area that now stretches all the way from Japan in the east to some of North America’s most populous metropolitan areas, such as New York and Montreal, in the west.
As you can see in the screenshots of our Day and Night Map, it is only when including the two brightest twilight phases that any significant portion of North America’s population joins the “dark side.”
Wherever you are, enjoy the dark skies!
If this sounds too gloomy and can’t wait for days to get longer again, let us sweeten the deal. Look at how much dark skies have to offer during that time of the year.
If the weather plays along, wrap up warm and go outside to enjoy the spectacular Geminids meteor shower. At its peak on December 14-15, we expect about 150 shooting stars per hour.
A few days later, on December 22-23, the Ursids meteor shower peaks, bringing us about ten meteors per hour.
And while waiting for the shooting stars to flit across the sky, you can use our Night Sky Map to spot planets and stars. Also, find more stargazing events in EarthSky’s Night Sky Guide.
Take it with a grain of salt
While we’re confident in our calculations and data sets, determining how many people experience nighttime at any one moment is a rather messy business.
For one, the world’s population isn’t static. It changes over time, and in some locations, it does so at a different pace than in others. We based our calculations on the latest reliable population data we could find, but they are from 2020.
What’s more, the margins are minuscule. While our algorithms identified a specific instant when most people experience night, they also gave us plenty of other dates and times during the Northern Hemisphere winter with a nighttime population that is just a tiny fraction smaller. We’re talking a few tens of thousands of people. Peanuts compared to the world’s population.
Bottom line: On December 6, the largest percentage of the human population sees a moment of global darkness.
Via timeanddate.com
Zelenskyy vows Ukraine “cannot be broken” as Russia bombs civilians into darkness, but runs short of missiles
Vinnytsia, Ukraine — Russia’s invading forces have left Kherson, but they’re still raining terror down on the southern Ukrainian city’s people.
“I hate the Russians,” said Lilia, after finding her mother’s body. Natasha was killed just a few steps from the safety of her home by a Russian missile strike. Lilia’s father died hours later, too, but she’s not alone.
“They took the most precious people in my life, but I have a son,” she said. “For him I must live.”
Survivors of Russia’s unending volley of rocket fire are left in the cold and the dark, because many of Vladimir Putin’s missiles have been aimed at Ukraine‘s power grid.
The Russian military is using winter as a weapon. With electricity cut, millions of families were unable to cook meals on Saturday as Ukraine commemorated the Great Famine of the 1930s, when the Soviet Union intentionally starved millions of Ukrainians to death.
“We cannot be broken,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy declared in an address to his nation, honoring those killed by Joseph Stalin then — and Vladimir Putin now. “Once they wanted to destroy us with hunger, now, with darkness and cold.”
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty
Even in the capital Kyiv, the electricity supply is unreliable. Locals have found shelter anywhere they can, including in tents. Inside one of them, we found Constantin, a videogame designer.
“We should live, we should stay, we should fight,” he told CBS News. “This is the only way of how we can actually win this war… Even if we have to sleep in a tent.”
Even in the dire circumstances, there are reasons for Ukrainians to have hope — more signs that Russian forces are taking a beating.
The latest British intelligence assessment of the war says Putin’s army is running so short on weapons and other supplies, that it appears to be resorting to firing cruise missiles from the 1980s that have been stripped of their nuclear warheads.
While such missiles “will still produce some damage” just with their impact any unused fuel they slam down still carrying, the U.K. said they were “unlikely to achieve reliable effects against intended targets.”
“Whatever Russia’s intent, this improvisation highlights the level of depletion in Russia’s stock of long-range missiles,” according to the British assessment.
2001-released hack-and-slash action adventure game Blade of Darkness now available for Switch
Blade of Darkness [1 article]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/games/blade-of-darkness”>Blade of Darkness, which first launched for PC on February 21, 2001, is now available for Switch [12,611 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/nintendo/switch”>Switch via Nintendo eShop via publisher QubicGames [1 article]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/companies/qubicgames”>QubicGames. While it will be regularly priced at $14.99, it is currently available at a launch discount price of $8.99.
Here is an overview of the game, via QubicGames:
About
A grim new threat looms over The Central Kingdoms. The borders protected by the fierce King’s Knights are no longer secure. The fearsome orc clans, more numerous than ever, lurk on all roads. The proud nomadic peoples of the steppes are on the alert, for strange beasts prowl the darkness. Not even the stout dwarves, hidden in their underground palaces, seem safe from threat – from the unknown tunnels of its mines, a foul army of hideous creatures advances inexorably.
Chaos seizes the World. Only the memory of the oldest recalls the exploits of a hero and a few warriors, who in other times fought against the forces of Chaos. Ianna, the mother of all living beings, gave the hero a powerful sword to enter the abyss and defeat evil. But that happened a long time ago. A new hero is needed, a chosen one who is worthy to wield the Sword and destroy the enemy… this time forever.
Key Features
- Four Playable Characters – Pick your Champion of Ianna—Tukaram, the Barbarian; Naglfar, the Dwarf; Sargon, the Knight; or Zoe, the Amazon—each with unique strengths, weaknesses, and fighting skills, as you hack ‘n slash your way through a blood-drenched quest to save the world from the forces of Chaos.
- Bloody and Gory Combat – Learn devastating combo attacks and use them to slice your opponents into pieces. Hack off your foes’ limbs, then use them as weapons!
- A Detailed and Dark Fantasy World – Battle orcs, trolls, golems, demons, skeletons, and scores of malevolent enemy creatures as you explore treacherous tombs, frozen fortresses, demon spires, deserts, temples, and palaces.
- Interactive Environments – Destroy in-game objects with fire or your fists as you solve puzzles and disarm traps that combine physics, hydraulic systems, and lethal traps!
- Re-Release of a True Genre-Defining Game – We are happy to bring Blade of Darkness back to life, an enduring classic that, at the time of its release, inspired many games in the Action [773 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/genres/action”>action– Adventure [583 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/genres/adventure”>adventure genre through its approach to combat.
Blade of Darkness is also available for PC via Steam and GOG.
Watch the Switch launch trailer below.
Switch Launch Trailer
Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness details ‘Deep in Abyss’ mode
Get the details below.
The Story Begins
The main character joins Belchero Orphanage as a fledgling “Bell” CAVE Interactive [52 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/companies/cave-interactive”>Cave Raider. For classes and training, the main character joins the three other students, Raul, a boy who’s always full of energy, the quiet and inconspicuous Tiare, and Dorothea, who’s a bit of an airhead, A few months later, the four finally see the day of their first exploration as “Red Whistles,” but there they are already confronted with the harsh reality of the Abyss…
The Game Cycle
In “Deep in Abyss” mode, players will challenge the Abyss as a new Cave Raider. While enjoying an original story advance through the main quests, collect relics, and complete various quests to earn rewards such as money and experience to develop your character. As you accumulate experience, the Cave Raider’s level will increase, and the player will be able to challenge deeper levels of the Abyss.
Prepare for Raiding / The Town of Orth
In the town of Orth, the base for Cave Raiders, prepare to challenge the Abyss by taking on quests and buying the necessities for your raid. As an apprentice “Red Whistle,” you will mainly receive your assignments from Jiruo at Belchero Orphanage, but as your Whistle level increases, the number of assignments you can receive will also increase. The town of Orth has the following facilities.
- Guild HQ – This is the headquarters of the organization that provides work to Cave Raiders. Various quests can be accepted.
- Supply Shop – A store that sells cave raiding essentials. Besides pickaxes, clothes and consumables are sold here.
- Relic Appraisal – A store that appraises and buys relics brought back from The Abyss. Obtain money and experience here.
- Laffi’s Store – A spice store run by Hablog’s wife Laffi. Purchase food and spices here.
Raiding the Abyss
The main objectives within the Abyss are main quests where an original story unfolds, guild quests accepted at the Guild HQ, and the collection of relics. The main character has three attributes: “physical strength”, “fullness”, and “stamina”. Both fullness and stamina are reduced when taking Action [489 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/genres/action”>action. Stamina recovers automatically, but to recover fullness you’ll need to eat. It is important to eat regularly to maintain fullness, as stamina cannot be restored while fullness is at zero.
—Raiding the Abyss involves avoiding hazards such as ferocious creatures and unstable terrain. When defeated by a large creature, they give a devastating “game-over” performance.
In addition to the three statuses, the player must consider numerous other factors when raiding the Abyss, including the surrounding environment, the health of the main character, the amount of remaining food, the durability of tools, and the weight of supplies. The player must pay attention to these factors and act appropriately, whether deciding to proceed with the raid, return to the surface, and sometimes even what to bring back.
—Carrying too much will greatly reduce speed of movement, and cost the ability to mine or attack.
Returning
After reaching their objective in the Abyss, the Raider must return to the surface. However, the further the Raider descends, the effects of “The Curse of the Abyss,” physical and mental burdens, become more intense as they return to the surface. The Raider may vomit, experience a significant decrease in fullness, or have blood gush from their body resulting in a decrease in fullness and stamina. In addition to “The Curse of the Abyss”, they may be attacked by creatures, the terrain may have changed or features that were present on the way down may not be available on the way back, forcing them to find a different route back.
Made in Abyss: Binary Star Falling into Darkness is due out for PS4 [23,470 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/playstation/ps4″>PlayStation 4, Switch [11,790 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/nintendo/switch”>Switch, and PC [15,412 articles]” href=”https://www.gematsu.com/platforms/pc”>PC via Steam on September 1 in Japan and September 2 in North America and Europe.
Artificial Photosynthesis Can Produce Food in Complete Darkness
Plants are growing in complete darkness in an acetate medium that replaces biological photosynthesis. Credit: Marcus Harland-Dunaway/UCR
Artificial photosynthesis is being developed by researchers to help make food production more energy-efficient on Earth, and maybe one day on
The new research, published on June 23, 2022, in the journal Nature Food, uses a two-step electrocatalytic process to convert carbon dioxide, electricity, and water into acetate, the form of the main component of vinegar. Food-producing organisms then consume acetate in the dark to grow. Combined with solar panels to generate electricity to power the electrocatalysis, this hybrid organic-inorganic system could increase the conversion efficiency of sunlight into food, up to 18 times more efficient for some foods.
“With our approach we sought to identify a new way of producing food that could break through the limits normally imposed by biological photosynthesis,” said corresponding author Robert Jinkerson, a UC Riverside assistant professor of chemical and environmental engineering.
In order to integrate all the components of the system together, the output of the electrolyzer was optimized to support the growth of food-producing organisms. Electrolyzers are devices that use electricity to convert raw materials like carbon dioxide into useful molecules and products. The amount of acetate produced was increased while the amount of salt used was decreased, resulting in the highest levels of acetate ever produced in an electrolyzer to date.
“Using a state-of-the-art two-step tandem CO2 electrolysis setup developed in our laboratory, we were able to achieve a high selectivity towards acetate that cannot be accessed through conventional CO2 electrolysis routes,” said corresponding author Feng Jiao at University of Delaware.
Experiments showed that a wide range of food-producing organisms can be grown in the dark directly on the acetate-rich electrolyzer output, including green algae, yeast, and fungal mycelium that produce mushrooms. Producing algae with this technology is approximately fourfold more energy efficient than growing it photosynthetically. Yeast production is about 18-fold more energy efficient than how it is typically cultivated using sugar extracted from corn.
“We were able to grow food-producing organisms without any contributions from biological photosynthesis. Typically, these organisms are cultivated on sugars derived from plants or inputs derived from petroleum—which is a product of biological photosynthesis that took place millions of years ago. This technology is a more efficient method of turning solar energy into food, as compared to food production that relies on biological photosynthesis,” said Elizabeth Hann, a doctoral candidate in the Jinkerson Lab and co-lead author of the study.
The potential for employing this technology to grow crop plants was also investigated. Cowpea, tomato, tobacco, rice, canola, and green pea were all able to utilize carbon from acetate when cultivated in the dark.
“We found that a wide range of crops could take the acetate we provided and build it into the major molecular building blocks an organism needs to grow and thrive. With some breeding and engineering that we are currently working on we might be able to grow crops with acetate as an extra energy source to boost crop yields,” said Marcus Harland-Dunaway, a doctoral candidate in the Jinkerson Lab and co-lead author of the study.
By liberating agriculture from complete dependence on the sun, artificial photosynthesis opens the door to countless possibilities for growing food under the increasingly difficult conditions imposed by anthropogenic climate change. Drought, floods, and reduced land availability would be less of a threat to global food security if crops for humans and animals grew in less resource-intensive, controlled environments. Crops could also be grown in cities and other areas currently unsuitable for agriculture, and even provide food for future space explorers.
“Using artificial photosynthesis approaches to produce food could be a paradigm shift for how we feed people. By increasing the efficiency of food production, less land is needed, lessening the impact agriculture has on the environment. And for agriculture in non-traditional environments, like outer space, the increased energy efficiency could help feed more crew members with less inputs,” said Jinkerson.
This approach to food production was submitted to
“Imagine someday giant vessels growing tomato plants in the dark and on Mars—how much easier would that be for future Martians?” said co-author Martha Orozco-Cárdenas, director of the UC Riverside Plant Transformation Research Center.
Reference: “A hybrid inorganic–biological artificial photosynthesis system for energy-efficient food production” by Elizabeth C. Hann, Sean Overa, Marcus Harland-Dunaway, Andrés F. Narvaez, Dang N. Le, Martha L. Orozco-Cárdenas, Feng Jiao and Robert E. Jinkerson, 23 June 2022, Nature Food.
DOI: 10.1038/s43016-022-00530-x
Andres Narvaez, Dang Le, and Sean Overa also contributed to the research. The open-access paper is entitled “A hybrid inorganic–biological artificial photosynthesis system for energy-efficient food production.”
The research was supported by the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) through NASA (NNX16AO69A), Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), the Link Foundation, the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy. The content of this publication is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research.
‘The darkness of war’: Ukraine crisis dominates leaders’ Easter messages | Easter
Boris Johnson has said the war in Ukraine amplifies Jesus Christ’s message of good triumphing over evil, with the nation’s independence dominating political and religious Easter messages on Sunday.
Delivering his speech on Twitter, the prime minister paid tribute to “the Christians of Ukraine, whether they’re marking Easter today, or its Orthodox equivalent later this month, for whom Christ’s message of hope, the triumph of life over death and good over evil, will resonate this year, perhaps more than any other”.
He also spoke in Ukrainian, referencing Psalms 31:24 by telling viewers “Be strong and have courage in your heart, you all who trust in the Lord.”
He added: “Easter tells us that there is light beyond the darkness, that beyond the suffering lies redemption.”
The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and Pope Francis also referenced the Ukraine conflict on Sunday.
Giving his Easter address from Canterbury cathedral, Welby said: “Ukrainians have woken up to the end of the world as they knew it.
“Now they are awakened by the noises of war, and the sickening reality of terror. They wake up to mortal fear.”
He added: “Let this be a time for Russian ceasefire, withdrawal and a commitment to talks. This is a time for resetting the ways of peace, not for what Bismarck called blood and iron. Let Christ prevail. Let the darkness of war be banished.”
The pope addressed about 100,000 people at the Vatican, and told of his anguish over the conflict.
He said: “Our eyes, too, are incredulous on this Easter of war. We have seen all too much blood, all too much violence. Our hearts, too, have been filled with fear and anguish, as so many of our brothers and sisters have had to lock themselves away in order to be safe from bombing.
“May there be peace for war-torn Ukraine, so sorely tried by the violence and destruction of the cruel and senseless war into which it was dragged.”
The pontiff spoke before a crowd on Easter Sunday for the first time since the pandemic began, and applause erupted from the crowd in St Peter’s square upon his mentioning of Ukraine.
He denounced “the flexing of muscles while people are suffering” and appealed to with the world to “please, please, let us not get used to war”.
“Let us all commit ourselves to imploring peace, from our balconies and in our streets,” he said. “May the leaders of nations hear people’s plea for peace.”
The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, also released a video, telling Christians around the world: “I know you draw inspiration from the life of Jesus and the Easter story which is a message of overcoming adversity and of hope. Of light overcoming darkness.”
Asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs sparked two YEARS of darkness on Earth, study reveals
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and almost all life 66 million years ago, sparked two years of darkness on the Earth, a new study has revealed.
Soot from wildfires filled the sky and blocked out the Sun soon after the asteroid hit the planet, according to a team from the California Academy of Sciences.
The 7.5 mile-wide asteroid was travelling at 27,000 miles per hour when it slammed into what is now the Gulf of Mexico, leaving the Chicxulub crater.
The impact from the asteroid eventually led to the extinction of 75 per cent of all life on Earth, and scientists have long been studying the after effects of this impact.
In a new study, the US team discovered the main extinction trigger may have been clouds of ash and soot particles spreading through the atmosphere.
They say these clouds would have persisted for up to two years, putting large parts of the Earth in darkness, and making it hard for anything to grow or survive.
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs and most life 66 million years ago sparked two years of darkness on the Earth, according to a new study
Life in the area surrounding the impact would have been killed instantly, but there was significantly more damage in the years following the collision.
This includes tidal waves, flooding and massive environmental change, including the spewing of particles into the atmosphere, spreading around the world.
While the Earth was shrouded in darkness, the researchers say photosynthesis – the process plants use to grow – would have failed.
This would have led to an ecosystem collapse, and even after the sunlight returned, the decline in photosynthesis would have continued for decades, the team explained in an interview with Live Science.
This atmospheric darkness was caused by pulverised rock and sulphuric acid from the crash forming as clouds in the sky, cooling global temperatures and producing acid rain – that led to wildfires starting.
This ‘nuclear winter scenario’, as first proposed in the 1980s, played a major part in the mass extinction explained Peter Roopnarine, study author, to Live Science.
Despite it being theorised for more than four decades, it has only been in the past decade that models have been developed to see how this darkness impacted on life.
‘The common thinking now is that global wildfires would have been the main source of fine soot that would have been suspended into the upper atmosphere,’ Roopnarine said.
‘The concentration of soot within the first several days to weeks of the fires would have been high enough to reduce the amount of incoming sunlight to a level low enough to prevent photosynthesis.’
The team studied the impact of this long-term dark period by reconstructing the ecological communities that would have existed when the asteroid hit.
They picked 300 species that were known to come from a fossil-rich expanse known as the Hell Creek Formation, which is made of shale and sandstone in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.
Soot from wildfires filled the sky and blocked out the Sun soon after the asteroid hit the planet, according to a team from the California Academy of Sciences
They then created simulations to expose the communities to periods of darkness from 100 to 700 days to find out which interval of darkness would lead to the level of extinction we now know happened among vertebrate species.
The fossil records show about 73 per cent of vertebrate species went extinct following the impact event.
Roopnarine told Live Science the onset of the impact from the darkness would have happened quickly, reaching maximum within a few weeks.
Ecosystems could mostly recover if the darkness only lasted 150 days, but after 200 days they reached a ‘critical tipping point’.
This was the point where some species went extinct and dominance among the remaining species shifted in a way that harmed the ecosystem.
When darkness lasted up to 700 days then extinctions spiked dramatically – reaching up to 81 per cent of all life, suggesting that the animals int he Hell Creek communities experienced about two years of darkness.
‘Conditions varied across the globe because of atmospheric flow and temperature variation, but we estimated that the darkness could have persisted in the Hell Creek area for up to two years,’ Roopnarine told Live Science.
The findings are preliminary, he explained, and only explore a single ecosystem, but suggest this could rebound across more species.
Further simulations of the Hell Creek community found that if it was dark for 700 days, it would take 40 years for conditions to rebound.
The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
KILLING OFF THE DINOSAURS: HOW A CITY-SIZED ASTEROID WIPED OUT 75 PER CENT OF ALL ANIMAL AND PLANT SPECIES
Around 66 million years ago non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out and more than half the world’s species were obliterated.
This mass extinction paved the way for the rise of mammals and the appearance of humans.
The Chicxulub asteroid is often cited as a potential cause of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event.
The asteroid slammed into a shallow sea in what is now the Gulf of Mexico.
The collision released a huge dust and soot cloud that triggered global climate change, wiping out 75 per cent of all animal and plant species.
Researchers claim that the soot necessary for such a global catastrophe could only have come from a direct impact on rocks in shallow water around Mexico, which are especially rich in hydrocarbons.
Within 10 hours of the impact, a massive tsunami waved ripped through the Gulf coast, experts believe.
Around 66 million years ago non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out and more than half the world’s species were obliterated. The Chicxulub asteroid is often cited as a potential cause of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event (stock image)
This caused earthquakes and landslides in areas as far as Argentina.
While investigating the event researchers found small particles of rock and other debris that was shot into the air when the asteroid crashed.
Called spherules, these small particles covered the planet with a thick layer of soot.
Experts explain that losing the light from the sun caused a complete collapse in the aquatic system.
This is because the phytoplankton base of almost all aquatic food chains would have been eliminated.
It’s believed that the more than 180 million years of evolution that brought the world to the Cretaceous point was destroyed in less than the lifetime of a Tyrannosaurus rex, which is about 20 to 30 years.
Shockingly Abundant Life Found Thriving in Darkness Under an Antarctic Ice Shelf
Deep under the ice of Antarctica’s Ekström Ice Shelf there is nothing but complete darkness.
Well, complete darkness and a thriving ecosystem that’s existed for thousands of years, according to a new paper by researchers from the UK and Germany.
“This discovery of so much life living in these extreme conditions is a complete surprise and reminds us how Antarctic marine life is so unique and special,” says lead author and British Antarctic Survey marine biologist, David Barnes.
“It’s amazing that we found evidence of so many animal types, most feed on micro-algae (phytoplankton) yet no plants or algae can live in this environment. So, the big question is how do these animals survive and flourish here?”
The researchers used hot water (we kid you not) to drill two boreholes on the relatively small Ekström Ice Shelf in East Antarctica back in 2018. One hole went down 192 meters (630 feet) of ice until it hit 58 meters of liquid water, while the other spanned 190 meters of ice with 110 meters of water underneath.
What they found in that dark, cold and food-scarce place under the ice was life, and lots of it. The team discovered 77 species from 49 different genera bryozoans, including sabre-shaped Melicerita obliqua, and serpulid worms such as Paralaeospira sicula.
Fragments of bryozoans discovered on the seabed. (David Barnes)
All of these creatures are suspension feeders – they sit in one place and, with feathery tentacles, snatch particles of organic matter from the water as it flows around them – which means that some kind of food source like sunlight-dependent algae must be getting in under the ice sheet.
This is pretty surprising, considering the closest open water source is 9.6 kilometers (6 miles) away. And past research has found life even further inland on bigger ice sheets like the Ross and McMurdo Ice Shelves.
“Despite permanent darkness for at least thousands of years, life has been observed even 700 km from ice shelf edges,” the team writes in their paper.
“It was thought that richness and abundance of life under ice shelves is highly depauperate. Yet, the biodiversity we found at both borehole sites would be high even for open-marine Antarctic continental shelf samples.”
Fragments of four species of Cellarinella even showed growth increments, similar to a tree’s rings, and the researchers discovered they were similar to other sized growth increments from samples around Antarctica.
But the researchers didn’t just find today’s filter feeders deep under the ice; they also looked at long-dead fragments and carbon dated them to discover their age.
“Another surprise was to find out how long life has existed here. Carbon dating of dead fragments of these seafloor animals varied from current to 5,800 years,” says one of the researchers, Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research geologist Gerhard Kuhn.
“So, despite living 3-9 km from the nearest open water, an oasis of life may have existed continuously for nearly 6,000 years under the ice shelf. Only samples from the sea floor beneath the floating ice shelf will tell us stories from its past history.”
This brings up another problem – in glacial events of the past when most of the Antarctic shelf was overridden by grounded ice (ice that reaches all the way to the sea floor), how did these dark ecosystems survive?
The new information suggests that the creatures lived in small areas that were not grounded, while open areas of water surrounded by sea ice would have allowed phytoplankton to thrive and then get eaten by those creatures far under the ice. The plankton would have been swept under the ice by the flow of the water – within the reach of the hungry creatures far beneath.
Unfortunately, despite the incredibly long life of these ecosystems so far, the researchers are nervous about their future.
“It may be cold, dark and food-scarce in most places,” the team writes, “but the least disturbed habitat on Earth could be the first habitat to go extinct as sub-ice shelf conditions disappear due to global warming.”
The research has been published in Current Biology.