The End of the Dinosaurs

The End of the Dinosaurs
The dinosaurs died out in a mass extinction that occurred 65 million years ago. The cause of this event is thought to have been the impact of an asteroid, shown here in an artist’s depiction (a), in the Gulf of Mexico just off the coast of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula (b). The asteroid was probably at least 10 kilometers (6 mi) in diameter. Its impact released more energy than a million hydrogen bombs and blasted a crater greater than 160 kilometers (100 mi) in diameter, now buried under thick layers of sediment.