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STUDY REVEALS WHAT REALLY KILLED THE DINOSAURS
BBC Science Focus
|December 2023
It wasn't the meteor's impact, but the colossal clouds of dust it kicked up into the atmosphere that drove the mass extinction 66 million years ago
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A giant asteroid measuring 10km (6 miles) in diameter hitting Earth some 66 million years ago wasn't the main cause of death for the dinosaurs, according to a new study. The impact, which formed the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico, released more energy than a billion nuclear bombs, but it was the dust it sent into the atmosphere that spelled the end for three quarters of life on Earth.
Published in the journal Nature, the study by a team of scientists from the Royal Observatory of Belgium suggests that clouds of fine silicate dust produced by pulverised rock sparked a dramatic period of global cooling.
This story is from the December 2023 edition of BBC Science Focus.
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