Artistic vision of drummer Chicxulub hitting the ancient Earth
Researchers from the University of Tohoku revealed new data on the landing of the Chicco asteroid 66 million years ago. They believe that a fall in any other place would have less catastrophic consequences. For example, if he had fallen in another part of the planet, dinosaurs could have survived.
The scientific world agreed with the idea that dinosaurs disappeared due to the fall of a large asteroid near the modern Yucatan Peninsula. Upon impact, a huge amount of material fell into the atmosphere and lowered the planetary degree, which is why most of the creatures froze. But there is an assumption that they could survive if the space rock chose another location for landing. To understand this issue, they used a computer to analyze various data sources. The simulation showed how much soot would have been generated if it fell at other points. The analysis was based on the amount of hydrocarbon material in the soil near the impact site. Hydrocarbons included not only oil or coal locations, but also other rocks with oil.
For convenience, we created a special map with shock places. It turned out that in the location where the asteroid fell, the density of the hydrocarbon was especially high. Had he been at another point and the temperature would not have dropped so low. But we still need to thank the accident, because then people would simply not have appeared.
