Earth turns into a snowball without enough sunlight

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Wehner
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Mike Wehner

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  • Earth experienced at least two ice-age-like periods in the distant past, and researchers aren't sure what caused them.
  • Theories include volcanic activity that blocked out the Sun or intense cloud formation that cast shadows across the planet.
  • Understanding why these "Snowball Earth" periods happen is critical to being able to predict them in the future.

Earth has endured some incredible changes over its several billion years of life. The most dramatic shift that most of us are aware of was the asteroid strike and aftermath that killed off most of the dinosaurs and gave tiny mammals a chance to thrive and evolve. But Earth has seen at least two other world-changing events that caused the planet to enter deep freezes.

These periods of so-called "Snowball Earths" were caused by a reduction in the amount of sunlight making it to our planet. As new research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A explains, the cause of these frosty periods in Earth's history is largely a mystery.

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Earth turns into a snowball without enough sunlight originally appeared on BGR.com on Wed, 29 Jul 2020 at 16:01:09 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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