Distant asteroid calamity shaped life on Earth 466 million years ago

The cataclysmic asteroid impact off Mexico’s coast that doomed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was not the only time an astronomical event shaped the history of life on Earth. Scientists on Wednesday said dust spawned by a gigantic collision in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter 400 million years earlier triggered an ice age on Earth that ushered in a significant increase in marine biodiversity. The event, occurring when life was concentrated in the seas and far before vertebrates first walked on land, set in motion evolutionary changes in invertebrates fundamental to marine ecosystems as they adapted to global cooling, they said.

Source: yahoo.com/news