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Dr. Universe: How did one comet kill all the dinosaurs?

It’s hard to imagine that one space rock wiped out the dinosaurs. But it did more than that. It killed 75% of the plants and animals on Earth. Me-OW.

I talked about that with my friend Barry Walker. He teaches geology classes about Earth’s history at Washington State University.

Walker told me that we call a space rock that hits Earth a meteorite. The meteorite that took out the dinosaurs set off changes on Earth. Those changes lasted for thousands of years. That’s how it killed so many things.

“We’re not saying everything got wiped out immediately,” Walker said. “Something happened, and within a geologically short amount of time—maybe 10,000 years or so—the damage was fully wrought.”

That something was a meteorite called Chicxulub. It crashed into Earth nearly 66 million years ago. It made a giant bowl-shaped hole in the ground called a crater. The crater is about 100 miles wide and around 12 miles deep. It’s near Mexico.

The meteorite killed everything near the crater. It caused fires for hundreds of miles. It set off earthquakes, huge waves called tsunamis and volcano eruptions.

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Dr. Universe: How do we know there are other planets?

I looked through a high-power telescope for the first time in college. I couldn’t believe how many stars I saw. It’s hard to imagine all the planets orbiting all those stars.

I talked about how we know those planets are out there with my friend Jose Vazquez. He’s an astronomer at Washington State University.

He told me that scientists look for planets outside our solar system using a number of instruments—like a photometer. That’s a tool that attaches to a telescope and measures light.

The sun and eight major planets make up our solar system. All the planets outside our solar system are called extrasolar planets or exoplanets. Some of them are called hot Jupiters. Exoplanets orbit other stars—just like we orbit the sun.

The closest exoplanet is nearly 25 trillion miles away. Scientists can’t point a telescope and look directly at a planet that distant. They can’t send a rover that far. Instead, they look for clues that a planet is there.

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Ask Dr. Universe: Why do whales use echolocation and what is it?

Toothed whales—like dolphins and belugas—might live in the ocean, but they have some big things in common with cave-dwelling bats. They’re all mammals that live in dark places and use echolocation.

Christine Portfors.
Portfors

That’s why I talked about your question with my friend Christine Portfors. She’s a biologist at Washington State University. Her lab keeps a colony of bats.

Many bats sleep in caves and zoom around at night. Their world is dark, so they use sounds and their echoes to perceive the world around them, which is called echolocation. Toothed whales live in dark oceans or murky rivers and lakes. That’s why they use echolocation, too.

“Whenever there isn’t enough light for an animal to do the things that it needs to do like navigate, collect food and find mates, then it has to use some other sensory system besides vision,” Portfors said. “So, they send out sound. That sound bounces off objects in their environment and comes back as an echo. They use those echoes to identify objects and navigate.”

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‘Another tough election’

As one of two Republican members of Congress from Washington to have voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler faces one of her toughest primaries since she was first elected to represent the southwest region of the state in 2010.

The number of Republicans in the race — including a former Green Beret endorsed by Trump — and the anger that the six-term congresswoman sparked among some in her party with her impeachment vote means Herrera Beutler could face a scenario that seemed unfathomable in her previous re-election bids: not making it through the primary.

Due to the nature of the top-two primary, the vote in the 3rd Congressional District could cut in a variety of ways, including the incumbent advancing to the general election against a fellow Republican or against a Democratic challenger — in previous elections Democrats have always captured enough of the primary vote to advance to November. But Herrera Beutler could also be edged out.

It all comes down who turns out to vote and how much power the Trump endorsement holds, said Mark Stephan, an associate professor of political science at Washington State University-Vancouver.

“The 3rd District taps into that national story of, where is the Republican Party headed,” he said. “How much continued influence does President Trump have over the party?”

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Lightning can start fires even when there’s heavier rainfall

The crack of lightning is sure to get your attention. When it’s not part of a deluge of rainfall, it can often start a fire, depending on where it hits.

But now, a new study led by Washington State University suggests the amount of rain that can fall during a fire-starting lightning strike is triple what was thought before.

Dmitri Kalashnikov.
Kalashnikov

“Before, forecasters had this sort of rule-of-thumb amount that’s one-tenth of an inch of rain or less, and we found that in some situations, and in some areas, there can be up to one-third of an inch of rain that will still start a fire,” said Dmitri Kalashnikov, a PhD candidate in the WSU School of the Environment and lead author of the study published in the Journal Geophysical Research Letters.

It’s important information, formulated by the study of 4,600 naturally caused fires in the western U.S. from 2015-2021. New technology allows for higher resolution results and better data, according to Kalashnikov, who said it will help experts get a better handle on dry-lightning-sparked fires.

“It will help anticipate fires when lightning is forecasted,” Kalashnikov said. “By knowing how much rain can fall or not fall and have there be a lightning risk, forecasters and fire managers can be better prepared to deal with possible fires.”

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