WHAT KILLED THE DINOSAURS?

“LONG-PERIOD COMETS MAY ALSO POSE LONG-TERM HAZARDS TO HUMANS AND EARTH’S BIOSPHERE”
MANASVI LINGAM

Researchers are fairly certain that the object known as the Chicxulub impactor ended the dinosaurs’ reign over Earth 66 million years ago when it crashed into the planet. The huge impact released energy equivalent to the detonation of 21 to 921 billion nuclear bombs, so it wasn’t just the dinosaurs that bore the brunt of the devastation. The impact sparked what geologists call the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction, an event that saw the elimination of around 80 per cent of the planet’s animal species.

Evidence of this violent impact is found in Earth’s geological record, most strikingly in the shape of a 150-kilometre (93-mile) wide and 19.3-kilometre (12-mile) deep crater carved into our planet at the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Yet despite the wealth of information about this collision between Earth and the Chicxulub impactor, there are still mysteries surrounding the object itself and the processes that caused it.

One of the most pressing puzzles that surrounds the