Dinosaurs May Have Been Wiped Out by ‘Oddball’ Space Rock
- Geochemist Philippe Claeys of Vrije Universiteit Brussel identified the roughly 15-kilometer Chicxulub asteroid as a primitive CO-like chondrite by analyzing nickel isotopes preserved in 66-million-year-old boundary clay.
- Researchers analyzed boundary clay from Stevns Klint, Denmark; Caravaca, Spain; and Furlo, Frontale, and Fornaci in Italy, comparing the asteroid's nickel against 11 carbonaceous meteorites to isolate the signal.
- Claeys suggests the impactor's dust—rather than sulfur—likely caused the 'nuclear winter' that eliminated about 75 percent of Earth's species, as CO-like asteroids contain relatively little sulfur.
- Originating from primitive material beyond Jupiter, the asteroid underwent limited geological change since the Solar System's formation, fitting earlier climate modeling from 2023 regarding impact dust.
- While the study narrows the source, the asteroid's precise journey remains unknown; Claeys emphasizes that being struck by such a rare, distant projectile shows how 'unlucky' the dinosaurs were.
23 Articles
23 Articles
Dinosaurs May Have Been Wiped Out by ‘Oddball’ Space Rock
By analyzing nickel isotopes preserved in the 66-million-year-old debris left by the Chicxulub impact, researchers conclude that the asteroid responsible for Earth’s last mass extinction most likely belonged to an exceptionally rare class of primitive meteorites called carbonaceous chondrites of the Ornans type (CO chondrites). The post Dinosaurs May Have Been Wiped Out by ‘Oddball’ Space Rock appeared first on Sci.News: Breaking Science News.
66 million years ago, a gigantic rock of more than 10 kilometers in diameter tore the sky at 64,000 kilometers per hour and crashed against the Earth. We all know how that story ended: the huge impact on what is today the Yucatan peninsula, in Mexico, formed the crater of Chicxulub, 200 km in diameter, and was the ultimate responsible for the total annihilation of non-avian dinosaurs and 75 percent of all life on our planet. However, the exact i…
The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was an exceptional space rock, according to study.
The meteorite that would have impacted the Earth 66 million years ago, causing the extinction of 75% of the species, including non-avian dinosaurs, would be a rare type of carbonaceous condrite, a sort of rock that is already scarce.
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