Science

Evolution BOMBSHELL: Exploding supernovae ‘put humans on two legs’


It was the extraordinary step that help personified the species – while other apes roamed on all fours, mankind’s predecessors stood up onto two legs. And from this towering position, humans would continue to conquer the world. Now scientists believe a surge of supernovae that bombarded Earth with energy may have been responsible for our ancient ancestors learning to walk upright. A new study suggests energy released from exploding supernovas triggered a surge in lightning strikes.

These strikes triggered forest fires around the world, with savannas replace the incinerated woodlands.

Our prehistoric forefathers had lived their lives on all fours in these ancients forests.

But experts say proto-humans shifted to two feet to adapt to the new ecosystem approximately eight million years ago.

Exactly why and when our distant ancestors stood upright and started moving around on two feet remains a mystery.

But the latest University of Kansas study claims this was a consequence of supernovae.

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Supernovae are the largest-known explosions in space and can shine for years with the brightness of 100 million suns.

And their energy reached Earth during the transition from the Pliocene Epoch to the Ice Age.

Earth was bombarded with cosmic energy starting eight million years ago, peaking around 2.6 million years ago.

This initiated a deluge of electrons in Earth’s lower atmosphere and the resulting atmospheric ionisation triggered lightning strikes resulting in forest fires.

The ravaged forests were then replaced by wide expanses of mixed woodland and open grassy plains.

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This meant our ancient hominin ancestors were not required to climb trees and humans consequently evolved to walking upright.

Professor Adrian Melott of the University of Kansas, the study’s lead author believes there was already a propensity for hominins to walk on two legs before the extraterrestrial intervention.

He said: “They were mainly adapted for climbing around in trees.

“After this conversion to savanna, they would much more often have to walk from one tree to another across the grassland, and so they become better at walking upright.

“They could see over the tops of grass and watch for predators.

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“It is thought this conversion to savanna contributed to bipedalism as it became more and more dominant in human ancestors.”

Based on a “telltale” layer of iron-60 deposits lining the world’s sea beds, astronomers have high confidence supernovae exploded near Earth during the transition from the Pliocene Epoch to the Ice Age.

Iron-60 is extremely rare on this planet with no known natural means to produce it, which leaves arrival from space as the logical origin.

The team calculated the ionisation of the atmosphere from cosmic rays which would come “from a supernova about as far away as the iron-60 deposits indicate,” Professor Melott added.



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