A supernova may have caused Earth’s mass extinction 359 million years ago

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. Tiny, rootless plants blew across the dry land. Over the course of 60 million years,…

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