WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind., July 28 -- Purdue University issued the following news release:
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Sixty-six million years ago, an asteroid about the size of Mount Everest smacked into Earth near where the Yucatan Peninsula is today. That impact created the Chicxulub crater and may have knocked out about three-quarters of all living species - including most of the dinosaurs.
Planetary scientists from Purdue University have discovered the key to how one rock - albeit a big one - could have devastated an entire global ecosystem: The asteroid sent up a cloud of planet-smothering dust, bathing the Earth in thermal radiation so intense that most species simply could not survive.
The study, published in the Journal of Geophysical Res...