Let’s talk about the dinosaurs. Everyone has heard the story: Dinosaurs roamed the Earth ages ago until an asteroid hit and caused all of them to go extinct. There was a huge amount of dust thrown up into the atmosphere which blocked out the Sun and caused plants to die. This set off a chain reaction up the food chain until, somewhere, the last lonely dinosaur keeled over, its kind never to resurface. How long do you think that took? A month? Two months? A year? More? But there is a new story. A more probable story, although it may be very difficult to believe. The asteroid that hit the Earth was approximately the size of Manhattan, a truly huge chunk hurtling toward us at unbelievable speeds. The result? A great impact, sure, but is that enough to kill every dino? Not by itself. Recent experiments show that the asteroid would vaporize the rock as it digs deep into the Earth, and that rock gas was shot into space. It then cooled and began to condense into small glass balls which spread around the planet. They then began to fall back to Earth. Most disintegrated in the atmosphere, but some did reach Earth. Those that disintegrated each caused the atmosphere to get a little bit hotter, eventually reaching temperatures over 1000 degrees Celsius, a temperature where any organisms’ blood would literally boil in their skin. Thus, the dinos that had been around for millions of years would die. How long did that take? Scientists estimate the entire episode from asteroid -> 1000 degrees took a total of 2 hours. Want to see more? Here is the link.
