The Day the Earth Nearly Died
Two hundred fifty million years ago, before the time of the dinosaurs, the earth flourished. Every niche - from the highest mountain to the deepest ocean - was buzzing with life. But then the earth experienced the single most destructive event in its history. Ninety-five percent of all species disappeared in just a few thousand years - the blink of a geological eye. It's called the Permian mass extinction and it was the worst disaster ever to hit earth. It shattered ecological order and changed evolution forever. For decades, the cause of this disaster has been a mystery. But recently, an extraordinary discovery has shed new light on the event, forcing scientists to point the finger at a massive meteor strike - just like the one that took out the dinosaurs. If both the Permian mass extinction and the dinosaur extinction were caused by meteors, then scientists will have to rethink how likely a future devastating impact may be...suddenly the odds are much higher.