Platinum blanketed the Northern Hemisphere: an unusual explosion occurred 12,800 years ago.

A new study confirms the hypothesis that the explosion of a comet during the late Dryas caused drastic climate changes and species extinction that occurred 12,800 years ago, as reported by SciTechDaily.

According to scientists, there is increasing evidence that a fragmented comet entered the Earth's atmosphere 12,800 years ago. This event resulted in a significant climate shift, transforming the planet's warming into what was almost a glacial period.

Professor James Kennett from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his team discovered materials that are considered indirect evidence of a cosmic airburst. These materials, including platinum and microspherules, were found in New Jersey, Maryland, and South Carolina.

The presence of such materials with shock fractures indicates the extreme pressure and temperature caused by the explosion.

"We observed that the pressure and temperature did not match those of large impact craters but were consistent with so-called 'airbursts' that do not leave craters," says the study's author.

The Earth's atmosphere is bombarded daily with tons of celestial debris in the form of tiny dust particles. At the other end of this scale are catastrophic collisions, such as the Chicxulub asteroid that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The impact crater from this asteroid, which is 150 km wide, can be found on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.

In the middle of the scale are cosmic impacts that do not leave craters on the Earth's surface but remain equally destructive. For instance, the shockwave from the Tunguska event flattened 2,150 square kilometers of forest after a 40-meter asteroid exploded in the atmosphere nearly 10 km above the Siberian taiga.

The comet that altered the climate during the late Dryas was about 100 km wide, significantly larger than the Tunguska meteor. The difference is that the comet during the late Dryas fragmented into thousands of pieces. The layer of debris from this comet extends across much of the Northern Hemisphere, but it can also be found south of the equator.

This layer contains unusually high levels of rare materials such as iridium, platinum, melted glass, nanodiamonds, and magnetic microspherules.

As a reminder, scientists have revealed where the dinosaur killer came from. Researchers identified the exact location from which the asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago originated.