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According to a new study, the catastrophe was caused by a giant dark primitive asteroid flying from the leading edge of the solar system’s asteroid ring between Mars and Jupiter. This space region is filled with dark asteroids, space rocks that appear darker (reflect very little light) due to their chemical makeup compared to other asteroids, reports livescience.com.
“For a long time I suspected that the outer part of the asteroid ring, which is where the dark primordial asteroids are, could be a major source of asteroids falling to Earth,” said David Nesvorny, a researcher at the Southwestern Research Institute in Colorado, who led the study. “But I didn’t expect the results to be so clear.” He added that the smallest asteroids do not necessarily come from the outer part of the asteroid ring.
Hints of the origin of a host from space that disrupted the reign of threatening reptiles on Earth were also found in the 145-kilometer-diameter Chiksulub crater in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Geochemical analysis of the crater allows us to assume that the fallen object belonged to the class of carbonate chondrites. These are primordial meteorites that contain a lot of carbon. They probably formed early in the life of the solar system.
Based on this information, scientists have tried to solve the riddle of the origin of asteroids in the past, but most theories have collapsed over time. Previously it was said that the asteroid belonged to the family of asteroids from the inner part of the main asteroid ring, but later observations of these asteroids showed that their chemical composition did not correspond to the composition of the orchestrated object on Earth.
The authors of another study, published in February in the journal Scientific Reports, claimed that the crater was left behind by a long-period comet. Recently, however, his study has received increasing criticism, such as counterarguments in a paper published in Astronomy & Geophysics in June.
In November 2021, the authors of a study published in the journal Icarus developed a computer model to investigate how asteroids in the main asteroid ring escape and spin toward Earth, and whether those “fugitives” could kill dinosaurs.
Modeling the changes, which lasted more than hundreds of millions of years, revealed that thermal forces and the gravitational pull of the planets periodically pull large asteroids out of orbit. On average, every 250 million. an asteroid with a diameter of more than 9.5 kilometers per year is heading for Earth.
The dinosaurs were exterminated by an asteroid that caused cataclysms.
Given these calculations, the probability of such a catastrophe is five times greater than previously thought. Furthermore, the data from the computer models do not conflict with the information available about the Chiksulub crater, which appeared 66 million years ago. years. By the way, it is the only known crater that has been destroyed by an asteroid of this size in the last 250 million. years. Interestingly, the model also took into account the distribution of “dark” and “light” asteroids in the asteroid ring.
The models showed that half of the asteroids ripped out of the ring were dark carbonate chondrites, and it was this conglomerate that formed Chiksulub crater.
“It’s a great piece of science,” said Dr. Jessica Noviello, who was not involved in the study. “I think the researchers have made some strong enough arguments as to why the asteroid that destroyed the dinosaurs flew out of the part of the solar system that they indicated.”
The new findings may not only explain the origin of the asteroid that left Chiksulub crater, but will also help scientists better understand the origin of asteroids that fell even earlier on Earth. It is not yet known which celestial bodies formed the other two huge impact craters: the Vredefort crater in South Africa and the so-called Sudber Basin in Canada. The results of the study can also help scientists predict where asteroids might fly in the future.
“During the investigation, we found that 60 percent. Of the largest asteroids come from the outer part of the asteroid ring and that most asteroids are dark / primordial,” Nesvorny said. “So the probability that another asteroid comes from from the same region is 60 percent. “
Source: https://www.livescience.com/dinosaur-killing-asteroid-origin-dark.html
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