What it would have been like to experience the dinosaur-killing asteroid

4 days ago

A T. rex's last moments include scavenging a Triceratops, avoiding an Ankylosaurus, and being incinerated by an asteroid impact 66 million years ago.
The asteroid, estimated at 10km in diameter, struck the Caribbean region, causing immediate thermal radiation, supersonic winds, and a transient crater deeper than the Mariana Trench.
Within minutes, hurricane-force winds and megatsunamis up to 100 meters high devastated areas up to 1,500km away, with atmospheric temperatures exceeding 226°C.
By one hour post-impact, dust circled the globe, darkening skies and dropping temperatures; acid rain with pH as low as 1 followed due to sulphur and nitrogen oxides.
After a week, solar flux dropped to 1/1000th of pre-impact levels, causing global cooling and extinction of large dinosaurs; smaller species survived in niches.
Within a year, average temperatures fell by 15°C, leading to mass extinction of over 50% of species, including dinosaurs and many marine reptiles.
Decades later, evidence like iridium spikes and the Chicxulub crater confirmed the impact hypothesis, linking it to Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction and mammalian evolution.

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