The cultural and scientific signifance of meteorites

The Independent : Ted Nield’s essay “Meteors: What Kills Also Creates” examines the long and varied history of how humans have interpreted the sometimes destructive, even calamitous, impact of meteorites that strike Earth. Hundreds of years ago, meteorites were believed to portend momentous events. In the 1980s large meteorite strikes were linked to mass extinctions. That association remains contentious. Now, writes Nield, some scientists propose that meteorites might have led to the opposite of a mass extinction: an explosion in the number of new species known as the Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event.