• Question: if a meteor hit the earth or the earth was ruined somehow would prokaryotes be the only living things left, because they're the simplest organisms?

    Asked by steelcoldathens77 to Darren, Deuan, Duncan, Lori-An, Michelle on 18 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Duncan Hull

      Duncan Hull answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      Great question! Many different kinds of prokaryotes are really good at living in very harsh and extreme conditions (like in the antarctic for example or even on other planets).

      So if the climate on earth changed radically (via a meteor strike), its highly likely that certain kinds of prokaryotes would be able to survive a catastrophic change in climate on earth.

    • Photo: Darren Nesbeth

      Darren Nesbeth answered on 17 Jun 2010:

      The archaea are simpler. Probably archaea would survive. It’s more about what habitat survives. Whichever habitat survives, the community that lives in that habitat will have a good chance, regardless of Kingdom (prokaryote, eukaryote, archaeon).

    • Photo: Lori-An Etherington

      Lori-An Etherington answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Peter Grego in his book Collision Earth has estimated that a 10km asteroid impacting on the planet would create waves in the Earth’s crust higher than houses, and a blast of 500ºC air travelling at 2500 kph. Any creature within 12 million sq km would be wiped out. That is approximately the size of the USA, Europe or Australia. Some species would be wiped out in this kind of impact but I don’t know which ones are best adapted for this kind of environmental change.

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