The impact of the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was so powerful that it sent into space huge volumes of earth’s soil and rocks from the crash site. But together with them, he could send into orbit the remains of living beings, including dinosaurs.
Such a possibility is discussed in the book “The End of the World” by the scientific journalist and winner of several awards Peter Brannen, according to the Daily Mail.
It is known that an asteroid or meteorite about 10 km in size collided with the Earth 66 million years ago, forming the Chikshulub crater on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. About 15 trillion tons of ash and soot were thrown into the air. Because of this, during the day it was dark on Earth, like a moonlit night.
As a result of the lack of light in plants, photosynthesis slowed down, which could lead to a decrease in the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere. Temperatures on continents dropped by 28 ° C, in oceans by 11 ° C. The disappearance of phytoplankton has led to the extinction of zooplankton and other marine animals. Other species died after them.
This is one of the largest mass extinctions in the history of the Earth, which is called the Cretaceous-Paleogene. Brannen, trying to make the numbers more descriptive, points out that the asteroid (or meteorite) was larger than Everest and crashed into the atmosphere 20 times faster than a flying bullet. At the same time, the pressure of the atmosphere was so strong that a crater in the Yucatan began to form even before the asteroid fell.
The “response” release of soil into the atmosphere occurred only within a second or two after the impact and was incredibly powerful.
“So there are probably little pieces of dinosaur bones on the moon,” Brannen suggests.
