We Finally Know How Much the Dino-Killing Asteroid Reshaped Earth

Smithsonian ^ | 2/25/2016 | Jane Palmer

[JimSEA]

I don't know if this has been posted. I searched but didn't see it.

[Uncle Miltie]

[CurlyDave]

While the graphic is spectacular, it is misleading.

The real impactor was only 6.5 miles in diameter, the one in the graphic is several hundred miles from scaling with the earth below.

[shotgun]

It happened once, it will happen again... (in the voice of Charlton Heston from the movie Armageddon)

[TexasCajun]

Worried ?

Man-Made Global Warming ...not so much.

Galactic Collision --- Now you got my attention!

[txhurl]

The ‘what to expect if it happens again’ .. pretty funny.

The TX Hill Country is one big reminder of what the asteroid caused.. fascinating but terrifying to contemplate.

[Gay State Conservative]

It also gives scientists an idea of what to expect if another such impact were to occur now.

Well,if another such impact occurs scientists can expect,among other things,that 99.9% of the humans alive at the moment before impact will be dead within a month.

[IronJack]

Is it true that some speculate this meteor impact is what imparted the “wobble” to Earth’s axis?

[stonehouse01]

Climate change.

[JimSEA]

I’ve heard the idea but I’m not aware of its status today.

[qam1]

The Chicxulub impact, which wiped out large dinosaurs and giant marine reptiles,

Cool Story but False

They were all dead long before the meteor hit (if it was actually one).

[txhurl]

A rock that size would knock us off our orbital path, freezing or frying us prretty quick... no recovery.

[Hoodat]

So a meteor is to blame for daylight saving time?

[Resolute Conservative]

So we can blame the asteroid for Austin?

[Shadow44]

Stop being a buzz kill! /s

[txhurl]

No... misquitos. Too many foreign statesmen and biz guys were croaking from skeeter-borne diseases so they moved the capitol from Washington-on-the-Brazos to Austin. Where we still have plenty of skeeters. They live happily in desolate, frozen Alaska parts, just bigger!

[RayChuang88]

Some scientists estimate such an impact probably turned the sky pitch black for at least a decade. Not only did it kill off much of the life on the planet, but it may have triggered off an Ice Age because with no warming effect of the Sun, for ten years when it snowed, the snow never melted and caused glacial sheets to develop.

A smaller version of this could happen if we have another supervolcano eruption--and we know of at least 4-5 sites around the world capable of a supervolcano eruption, including Yellowstone National Park, the huge caldera near Mammoth Mountain in California, and Lake Toba on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.

[TnTnTn]

Well I’m sure glad to know ‘what to expect if it happens again’. That info will be real helpful for the few milliseconds of life remaining!

[The_Victor]

The ‘what to expect if it happens again’ .. pretty funny.

If it gets as far as the impact event, our worries are over.

[eclectic]

It is a planet killer in the picture.