Minute by minute – how asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs devastated Earth with 100mph tsunamis and ‘glass bullets’
THE DEATH of the dinosaurs has been laid out into a detailed timeline thanks to scientists who have been surveying the crater of the asteroid that killed them.
A team led by Sean Gulick from the University of Texas has put together the following sequence of events that wiped out the creatures which ruled Earth for 180million years in a matter of minutes.
Two days before impact
Around 66million years ago, the asteroid that was days away from killing the dinosaurs would have appeared in view of Earth as a small bright light.
It wouldn’t have appeared to be moving but would have been getting brighter, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The nine mile wide asteroid called Chicxulub will soon crash into Earth and change the course of history forever.
One hour to go
At this time, Earth would have been alive with an abundance of creatures on both sea and land.
The dinosaurs, such as the Tyrannosaurus rex and Giganotosaurus, would have been going about their day.
However, the scientists think they would have been able to see what looked like two Suns in the sky as the asteroid approached.
Two minutes to impact
The asteroid would have flown over the South Atlantic.
It would have looked just like a fireball, appearing much brighter than the Sun now and burning at 20,000 degrees Celsius.
Five seconds before
The asteroid blasts a hole in the Earth’s atmosphere causing a global supersonic shock wave.
Its travelling at 45,000 miles per hour at this point and appears as a bright flash of light.
Impact
The asteroid smashes into Earth with an explosion that’s a billion times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.
It impacts on the shallow waters of what is now the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
This creates a crater that’s 100 miles across and 20 miles deep.
The asteroid is vaporised sending 25trillion tons of space rock debris into the atmosphere.
One minute after
Molten material has now been blasted into the atmosphere at speeds of more than 100,000 miles per hour.
Some even hits the Moon.
The burning debris coming from the newly formed Chicxulub crater is now hotter than the Sun so everything nearby is on fire.
Dinosaurs nearby would have starting boiling and bursting open with steam as temperatures reached over 300 degrees Celsius.
Other creatures would have been incinerated instantly.
A huge tsunami that’s hundreds of feet high then forms.
Two minutes after
Wildfires and other huge craters start to form due to pieces of rock from the explosion falling back down to Earth.
The Earth’s surface would have been moving sporadically at this point causing big creatures to tumble.
Smaller early mammals would have been looking for safe places to shelter at this point and may have been burrowing or hiding under rocks.
Three minutes after
Mighty Tyrannosaurus rexes 2,000 miles north of the impact zone are falling in the Earthquake and smashing their skulls open.
Shifting sediments are already burying the dead creatures, which would later become evidence of this catastrophe.
Five minutes later
In North America, quetzalcoatlus, a flying dinosaur with a wingspan of 36feet, would have been shot out of the sky by glass ‘bullets’.
These bullets would have been made as molten rock that was flung into the atmosphere begins to fall back down to Earth.
As it forms, it begins to cool, forming a glass like substance.
30 minutes after impact
The huge tsunami that was created earlier, hits coastlines at 100 miles an hour.
This would have extinguished forest fires.
The Chicxulub crater begins rapidly filling up with seawater and then raining glass and rocks finally ends.
Three hours after impact
Wildfires would still be burning in North America but temperatures would have been cooling down in general.
Dinosaurs still alive in Montana would have had their ear drums ripped apart by a deafening sonic boom.
This would have been the sound of the asteroid impact as it would take around three hours to travel 2,000 miles northward.
Four hours after impact
Electrical storms would now be happening all over the world and further tsunamis would have been caused by landslides and Earthquakes.
In Western Europe, earthquakes and wildfires would have been plaguing the land.
Ten hours after
North America is now cooler but the air is full of smoke from all the fires.
Herds of triceratops are now dead or dying in swamps.
One day later
Soot and dust stop the Sun from appearing.
This is the first day of what scientists call the Cenozoic or ‘recent’ era.
Debris is still flying up from the crater.
Fragments of it are on their way to orbit the Sun and some will land on Mars and the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.
Any microbes on these fragments may now be life exported from Earth to space.
One week after impact
The sky is so dark that plants can’t photosynthesise and begin to die.
This means any large herbivores that did survive the impact are beginning to starve to death.
All the creatures that have died are causing a devastating knock-on effect on the food chain for animals in the sea and on land.
Two weeks after impact
Avian dinosaurs, close relative of birds, are showing signs that they will survive the apocalypse.
The ability to fly means they could escape the worst areas, they bread faster than large creatures and adapt better to new environments.
These survivors will eventually become the millions of birds we know today.
Two months after impact
The fires have died down so Earth is now cold and dark.
The darkness from dust will continue for another two months.
Any animal larger than a crocodile has been wiped out.
The atmosphere is full of carbon dioxide, methane and carbon monoxide.
Acid rain is falling and the world is much quieter than it was two weeks ago.
The dinosaurs are gone forever
The dust eventually clears and sunlight returns to the planet.
Earth eventually recovers.
However, the demise of the dinosaurs means that mammals have been given a chance to rule the world.
Soon the earliest primate and our own distant ancestor forms.
The asteroid may have spelt the end for the dinosaurs but without it we may not be here today.
Why did the dinosaurs die out?
Here's what you need to know...
- The dinosaur wipe-out was a sudden mass extinction event on Earth
- It wiped out roughly three-quarters of our planet’s plant and animal species around 66million years ago
- This event marked the end of the Cretaceous period, and opened the Cenozoic Era, which we’re still in today
- Scientists generally believe that a massive comet or asteroid around 9 miles wide crashed into Earth, devastating the planet
- This impact is said to have sparked a lingering “impact winter”, severely harming plant life and the food chain that relied on it
- More recent research suggests that this impact “ignited” major volcanic activity, which also led to the wiping-out of life
- Some research has suggested that dinosaur numbers were already declining due to climate changes at the time
- But a study published in March 2019 claims that dinosaurs were likely “thriving” before the extinction event
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