Dinosaur-dooming asteroid hit Earth at ‘deadliest’ angle, study suggests
- Some scientists believe giant space rock smashed into Earth at angle of 60 degrees, ejecting huge quantities of gas and debris
- Experts still trying to figure out exactly why some species survived while others didn’t
This much we knew: some 66 million years ago an asteroid roughly twice the diameter of Paris crashed into Earth, wiping out all land-dwelling dinosaurs and 75 per cent of life on the planet.
What remained a mystery was whether it was a direct hit or more of a glancing blow, and which would be more destructive.
As it turns out, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications, the giant space rock struck at the “deadliest possible” angle – 60 degrees.
The cataclysmic impact kicked up enough debris and gases into the upper atmosphere to radically change the climate, dooming T-Rex and everything it ever hunted to extinction.
Analysing the structure of the 200km-wide crater in southern Mexico where the asteroid hit, scientists ran a series of simulations.
Lead author Gareth Collins of Imperial College London and colleagues at the University of Freiburg and the University of Texas at Austin looked at four possible impact angles – 90, 60, 45 and 30 degrees – and two impact speeds, 12 and 20km per second.