The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs hit at the worst possible angle and therefore caused maximum damage

This is according to a new study that uses data from the crater area in Yucatan, Mexico, and computer simulations of the possible impact angles * Video illustration

By: Aroun Le Barre, Research Fellow, International Ocean Research Programme), University of Leicester, Translation: Avi Blizovsky

The asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Illustration: Image by K. Kliche from Pixabay
The asteroid that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. Illustration: Image by K. Kliche from Pixabay

There are few geological events more fascinating than the one that occurred 66 million years ago. Evidence indicates that a giant asteroid hit our planet, igniting a chain of events that led to a mass extinction in which over 70% of species on Earth disappeared - including the dinosaurs.

New research narrows down the possibilities of this asteroid's orbit, and could help us better understand how the impact affected the planet it hit and how the materials were dispersed in the atmosphere following the impact. The research indicates that the impact angle of this asteroid could lead to the worst possible results for the inhabitants of the planet.

The asteroid is long gone. It disintegrated when it hit the Earth, but it left a crater 200 km wide. By looking at the geometry and structure of this crater, possible asteroid orbits can be tested with computer simulations and see which one might leave a scar as seen in real life.

The crater can no longer be seen. It is buried under hundreds of feet of sediment that has accumulated since the impact. However, evidence from different directions pointed to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico as the location of the crater, and it was named after a local village, Chicxulub. Since then, various data sets have been collected to allow researchers to evaluate the features of this crater.

In 2016 I joined a joint scientific expedition organized by the International Ocean Exploration Program and the International Onshore Scientific Drilling Program. We spent two months at sea, drilling samples from the crater in a certain place - in its peak ring.

Peak rings form during large impact events. The one found in the Chicxulub crater consists of an inner ring of hills with a diameter of 80 km and is actually a second circle inside the crater. Peak rings are more easily observed on other rocky bodies in our solar system, such as the Schrödinger Crater on the Moon.

Our expedition sought to understand how these features are formed and what happens to the target rocks during the impact. It is difficult to conduct experiments in the high pressures and temperatures after the asteroid impact. That's why the researchers use computer simulations.

The samples collected during the 2016 expedition helped us refine models of the formation of the peak ring, and ultimately the Chicxulub crater. For an asteroid that landed vertically on the surface, he showed that within a minute it could open a hole about thirty kilometers deep.

During the next two minutes the force from the impact caused the bottom to rise to a height of more than 10 km. Then over the next two minutes, the central part of the crater collapsed outwards, forming the peak ring. In fact, the impact was so powerful that it raised part of the earth's mantle, in the layer below the earth's crust from a depth of more than 30 km underground.

Asteroid hitting the Earth - the damage depends on the angle of impact. From Jumpstory
An asteroid hitting the Earth - the damage depends on the angle of impact. From Jumpstory

The new study by researchers from Imperial College London, published in Nature Communications, tested in a simulation different asteroid sizes, speeds and impact angles - 90° (vertical), 60°, 45° and 30° relative to the Earth's surface, to understand which scenario would have left a crater that looked like a smaller Yucatan crater.

The shape and continuity of Chikaxolov's peak ring suggests that the asteroid actually crashed at an angle of between 45 and 60 degrees. If the apex ring were truncated (like a horseshoe), this would suggest a shallow angle, but this does not appear to be the case. The direction of the asteroid impact is more difficult to estimate.

But by looking at the relative positions of the crater center, peak ring, and mantle uplift mentioned above, it is possible to estimate where the asteroid came from. If the impact was vertical, the three centers would be expected to overlap, but they do not. Kyzosm could have indicated that the asteroid came from the northeast.

after the injury

Regardless of direction, the actual angle is quite important to describe what happened after impact. The approximate range of angles, and especially 60 ° relative to the surface of the earth, would have resulted in the most efficient evaporation of the rocks and the emission of toxic gases and particles equally in the region and in the world.

Other simulations show that a range of 60 to 30 degrees would have released much more gas and dust than if it had entered at a vertical angle (90°) or a low angle (15°). This suggests that not only did the asteroid hit where it was most likely to release toxic materials, but it also did so very efficiently, leading to the worst-case scenario on our planet and the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Previous research suggested that a shallower angle and a different direction would have meant that the impact of the impact was more severe in the Northern Hemisphere. According to the new model, if the angle were steeper, the ejected material would spread more uniformly. This may allow future researchers to re-examine the broader record of the impact to better reconstruct the events that occurred in its aftermath.

to the article on The Conversation website

More of the topic in Hayadan:

Comments

  1. It seems that God is very pleased with us, because the people of Israel are alive and well and my baby is the Messiah King. On the same subject, Torah sages say that if there are buses on Shabbat, the Lord will send here not a rock, but a singularity and there will be no more people and no more heaven as in the previous 5 attempts. it is known.

  2. The ignorance here is something.
    250 million years ago the dinosaurs were the chosen people (haven't you heard of Abrahamosaurus?). 200 million years God was pleased with them. But in the end, like everyone else, they too started to mess up and sin. Some worked on Shabbat, some were adulterers and some even stopped praying and started believing in jellyfish.
    God, like God, finally got angry, threw a big rock and finished them off. It can be said to his credit that he spared the group of devout believers and organized feathers and wings for them.
    Let's see how his project with the big-headed mammals ends up.

  3. An interesting theory about Noah's ark, maybe the dinosaurs didn't get on the ark, but there were marine dinosaurs, and what happened to them? It's an amusing theory and it's nice that someone thought of it, but in fact, the dinosaurs existed long before man was born and they became extinct long before man was created, however it is not known exactly when and it is open to speculation, in my opinion the dinosaurs became extinct because their environment had changed and did not suit them, they did not They managed to adapt to the changes and according to Darwin's Torah, those who do not adapt or change according to the changes in the environment, will eventually become extinct! (And not that man descended from monkeys, that is not what the theory of evolution intended)

  4. The dinosaurs are already mentioned in Genesis among the first health. Extinct in the flood when God commanded Noah to choose and sort the animals into pairs. So not all the animals were chosen to go up to the ark, and there are animals that were left behind.

  5. One who doesn't know, if this is supposed to be a joke then just so you know it's a really unsuccessful joke and besides tell about your "God" to the crater that was created.

  6. The article is very interesting, but Mr. Blizovsky should improve his Hebrew a little and present his readers with an article written in a more eloquent and clearer language.

  7. From watching the simulation video, if these are the correct data, then the rate of events was faster and the intensity was also greater. In about 20 seconds, he made a pit of about 30 kilometers and blew the ground to a height of over 20 kilometers.

  8. For some reason, the angle of impact doesn't matter. Most craters in the solar system are perfect circles. Not to mention hexagonal craters. These require a different computer simulation…

  9. Nonsense in juice, it's God who destroyed the dinosaurs and shrunk the ones that were left to chickens so that we would have something to eat. hook

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