Nadir crater: The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was not alone
Nadir crater: The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was not alone
A second asteroid hit Earth around the same time causing a "catastrophic" event.
The huge asteroid that hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was not alone, scientists have confirmed.
A second, smaller space rock smashed into the sea off the coast of West Africa creating a large crater during the same era.
It would have been a “catastrophic event”, the scientists say, causing a tsunami at least 800m high to tear across the Atlantic ocean.
Dr Uisdean Nicholson from Heriot-Watt University first found the Nadir crater in 2022, but a cloud of uncertainty hung over how it was really formed.
wow! this must be the most "fuck you in particular" moment ever.
People have speculated that the culprit could have been a binary asteroid along with the Chicxulub impactor. Even if that wasn't the case, it's estimated that similarly-sized (~450 m) impacts occur every 50,000-100,000 years. That would mean there could have been many hundreds of such impacts in the 66 million years since Chicxulub, so not nearly as unlikely of a coincidence as it seems from reading the article -- especially considering the million-year margin of uncertainty in dating this smaller crater.
The ol' double tap never fails
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