Scientists believe they have discovered where asteroid which wiped ...
A "sungrazed" comet may be responsible for the extinction event around 66 million years ago.
news.sky.comThe asteroid that contributed to the dinosaur extinction struck the Yucatán Peninsula region, creating the Chicxulub crater in what is now Mexico, and its impact helped drive global climate change that led to mass extinction about 66 million years ago. The prevailing view is that the Chicxulub impact was the primary event behind the end-Cretaceous extinction, though some evidence and models discuss additional contributing factors and secondary impact events.
Latest context and what this means:
- Chicxulub crater location: offshore Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. This is considered the primary impact site associated with the end-Cretaceous extinction.[5]
- The impact released enormous energy, vaporized rocks containing sulfur, and injected a global dust and aerosol veil into the atmosphere, contributing to climate cooling and disruption of photosynthesis, which cascaded through ecosystems.[1][3]
- Some research suggests a possible secondary impact event or additional ejecta that could have compounded environmental stress, but the dominant scientific consensus remains that Chicxulub was the key driver of the mass extinction, with global climate effects as the proximate cause.[3][4][6]
Illustration (brief):
- Imagine a giant meteor striking a shallow ocean near the Yucatán, triggering mega-tsunamis, wildfires, and widespread atmospheric smoke. The resulting short- to medium-term global cooling then collapsed plant communities and the food web, leading to the deaths of many life forms, including non-avian dinosaurs.
If you’d like, I can pull the most recent peer-reviewed summaries or create a quick visual timeline of the sequence of events from impact to extinction, with citations to recent studies. I can also fetch up-to-date sources and provide a concise bibliography. I will include citations for each factual point.