Supernovas may have affected the Earth’s climate in the last 40,000 years. Tree-ring data suggests supernovas caused spikes in radiocarbon.

Ancient supernovas may have blasted Earth with powerful radiation, causing dramatic changes in our climate, and could do so again, posing a threat to life.

Luckily for Earth, these supernovas are well outside the calculated kill-distance of about 8 parsecs (or around 26 light-years), where such an explosion would be bad news for life.

He assembled a list of supernovas that occurred relatively close to Earth over the last 40,000 years. Scientists can study these events by observing the nebulas they left behind.

To study those possible impacts, Brakenridge searched through the planet’s tree ring records for the fingerprints of these distant, cosmic explosions. His findings suggest that relatively close ...

Yet, supernovas can also be destroyers. If one explodes within about 65 light-years of Earth, its radiation could strip away the ozone layer, exposing the planet to harmful ultraviolet rays and ...

The calculations suggested that 2.5 supernovas might affect Earth in some way every 1 billion years, equating to one or two in the past 500 million years during which life evolved on the planet.

Violent supernovas may have caused two of Earth’s largest mass extinctions that have never been completely explained, according to a theory put forward in new research. During the final stages ...

This month, NASA awarded $500,000 to a research team based in part at the University of Kansas to make the most painstaking assessment ever of the potential damage from a near-Earth supernova.

The nearest candidate, Spica, is about 250 light-years away, and there are no stars that will become supernova candidates and approach within 30 light-years of Earth in their lifetimes.

To estimate how close a supernova would have to be to cause serious damage to Earth, we must first look at a supernova's destructive capabilities. When you purchase through links on our site, we ...