Nov 1, 2023 at 12:28 AM Update: 17 minutes ago
The impact of an asteroid 66 million years ago caused a huge dust cloud. It turns out that that dust ultimately caused the dinosaurs to become extinct research that in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience was published.
The asteroid’s impact on Earth caused a gigantic blow, heavier than a billion nuclear bombs combined. Then forest fires, volcanic eruptions and enormous amounts of sulfur occurred all over the world.
But Belgian researchers wrote that the “exact killing mechanisms” set in motion by the impact were still unclear. Not enough attention has been paid to the trillions of tons of dust, soot and sulfur that swirled in the atmosphere in the years after the impact.
That dust cloud blocked the sun and led to a worldwide winter. Trees, plants and shrubs could not grow there, which led to major effects on animals. Up to 75 percent of Earth’s dinosaur species were wiped out.
Scientists have simulated the asteroid impact with computer simulations. This shows that the dust could remain in the atmosphere for up to fifteen years. As a result, photosynthesis (the process by which plants use sunlight to grow) may have been halted for almost two years. This is mainly due to so-called silicate dust that makes the atmosphere opaque. This allowed the planet to cool by up to 15 degrees.
So the earth became dark and cold for a few years. The asteroid didn’t kill all the dinosaurs at once, but it was a more insidious killer, causing a war of attrition that killed three out of four species.
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2023-10-31 23:28:40
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