The destruction of an asteroid would trigger a "Snowball Earth" era.

This research, published on July 15, discusses the destruction of a giant asteroid approximately 800 million years ago and suggests that this asteroid might have been the cause of the "Snowball Earth" era.

The "Snowball Earth" event was not merely an ice age like the ones experienced by Neanderthals and our mammoth-hunting ancestors—no, it was something far more extreme. During a typical ice age, ice sheets covered regions like England or extended as far south as New York, yet the climate remained warm further south; rainforests covered the equatorial regions. While these forests were not as vast as they are today, there was still plenty of land—in fact, even more land was exposed because sea levels were 150 meters lower than they are now. Areas like the Persian Gulf were river valleys that likely enjoyed an ideal climate.

These regions may well have been paradises for the humans of that era; there were lush green zones, and the Indonesian islands were largely connected into a single landmass with a reasonably pleasant climate. That is what a standard ice age looks like, but this event was different—it was far more brutal. It occurred during the Cryogenian period—a name that itself evokes the cold—between 720 and 635 million years ago.

It was a massive glaciation event; according to some researchers, glaciers reached almost to the Equator, while others believe ice covered the entire planet for several million years. Even the most optimistic theories suggest that while the equatorial belt might have remained relatively ice-free—with open water present—the climate there would still have resembled that of northern Canada. We were saved—just in time for the evolution of complex life—by volcanic activity that spewed carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

A contributing factor was that, with the water frozen, there was no rainfall; it snowed instead of raining. Since rain is effective at absorbing CO2, the gas emitted by volcanoes accumulated massively in the atmosphere, creating an ultra-powerful greenhouse effect that eventually melted the ice, liberating us from that "Snowball Earth" state. But the question remains: what caused that event? We need to understand the cause, because if it were to happen again, it would be a total catastrophe. Civilization might survive a standard ice age, but a "Snowball Earth" scenario would reduce humanity to a tiny population of just a few million—or even fewer—struggling to survive in extremely harsh conditions.

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