The asteroid that ended the dinosaurs struck what is now Mexico with such force that it blasted molten ejecta high above the atmosphere before it rained back down across the planet, and many of the survivors were small, sheltered creatures — including ear

The asteroid that ended the dinosaurs struck what is now Mexico with such force that it blasted molten ejecta high above the atmosphere before it rained back down across the planet, and many of the survivors were small, sheltered creatures — including ear

About 66 million years ago, an asteroid roughly 10 to 15 kilometres across struck the shallow sea covering what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. It left a crater, named Chicxulub after a nearby town, on the order of 180 kilometres wide. The impact is the event most directly associated with the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, which removed the non-bird dinosaurs and around three-quarters of plant and animal species. The link between the im…