Dec 28 1994
From The Space Library
NASA announced that its scientists now believed that it was the sulfur-rich atmosphere created in the aftermath of an immense asteroid collision with Earth 65 million years ago that brought about a global freeze and the demise of the dinosaurs. According to planetary geologist Adriana C. Ocampo and atmospheric scientist Kevin H. Baines, both of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Earth and Space Sciences Division, Pasadena, California, the impact of this asteroid hit a geologically unique, sulfur-rich region of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. They estimated that the impact kicked up billions of tons of sulfur and other materials and was between 10,000 to 50,000 times more powerful than the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 impact on Jupiter the preceding July. Persistent clouds generated by this impact caused temperatures to plunge globally to near freezing. These environmental changes lasted for a decade, causing half of the species on Earth to become extinct. (NASA Release 94-219)
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