Dinosaur-killing asteroid also created a dust cloud that insulated Earth, ‘charbroiling’ Cretaceous creatures (IMAGE)

Purdue University

Dinosaur-killing asteroid also created a dust cloud that insulated Earth, ‘charbroiling’ Cretaceous creatures

Caption

Planetary scientists Brandon Johnson and Alexandria Johnson, experts in craters and clouds respectively, analyzed the physics of the Chicxulub impact to understand how one rock, even 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.

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Purdue University/Kelsey Lefever

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