ABU HURERYA, SYRIA — Impact from a comet around 12,800 years ago is believed to have wiped out a human settlement, according to new research published in Scientific Reports. <br /><br />The study suggests that meltglass samples found at the Abu Hureyra site in Syria could be evidence that a comet destroyed the area. <br /><br />The high-energy and intense heat needed to create the molten glass material could only have resulted from a cosmic impact, suggests study author and University of California Santa Barbara, Geology Professor James Kennet. He says those sorts of temperatures could melt a car in less than 60 seconds.<br /><br />The findings back a theory known as the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis. This suggests that debris from a disintegrating comet entering Earth's atmosphere struck areas in the Americas, the Middle East and Europe some 12,800 years ago.<br /><br />Kennet says that the settlement at Abu Hureyra would have been "abruptly destroyed" by such an event.<br /><br />Thumbnail image via University of California, Santa Barbara.
