What Factors Determine the Damage of an Asteroid Impact?

The asteroid impact theory, also known as the "Alvarez Hypothesis", was founded in the 1970s by Luis Walter Alvarez, a Nobel Prize winner in physics and a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley ) With his son Walter Alvarez (geologist). ^[1-3] Among the dinosaur extinction hypotheses, the asteroid impact theory is the most popular. It is believed that asteroids (later scholars think that comets are more likely) are the culprits in killing dinosaurs. ^[2-3]

Asteroid impact theory

The asteroid impact theory, also known as the "Alvarez Hypothesis", was established in the 1970s by

There are many hypotheses about the causes of dinosaur extinction, but the most famous is American scientists

Today Yucatan is land, but 65 million years ago this area was a shallow sea. At that time, the asteroid hit the earth at high speed. Above the adjacent impact point, the star suddenly exploded. A powerful shock wave instantly blasted the impact point into a huge pit, and more than 100 cubic kilometers of rock were dug out. Recently, scientists calculated that the tsunami waves at that time were as high as 350 meters, and the lowest was 100 meters. According to their research, the sea level in that area was about 200 meters higher than now, and the disaster star hit the shallow sea bottom 200 meters deep ^[3]

Because the asteroid hits the bottom of the shallow ocean, the tsunami caused by it is not large compared with the energy of the impact, but the seawater

According to research in recent years, after the asteroid accident, the rain in the sky for a long time was "sulfuric acid rain" rich in sulfuric acid. Researchers said that a large amount of gypsum deposits are trapped in the underground rock formations of the asteroid impact points, and sulfur in gypsum is the direct source of sulfuric acid rain ^[3] . It is self-evident how much the sulfuric acid rain has caused damage to the creatures on the surface of the earth. Researchers believe that if the asteroid hits elsewhere (where it does not contain gypsum ore), the outcome will be much better than this ^[3] .

This asteroid's blow to the earth made the earth's surface again a fire, a tsunami, and a fall in temperature. At the same time, the sky was acid rain, and the earth was dark. Needless to say, the volcanic eruption and earthquake caused by the collision will surely come out with it and make a noise. A good earth instantly became a hell on earth.

A large amount of evidence shows that an asteroid hit our planet 65 million years ago, and it brought about an unprecedented ecological disaster, and the earth s ecosystem was completely destroyed ^[3] . There is a view that the cataclysm at the end of the Cretaceous was the result of intense volcanic activity at that time, but various evidences show that the volcano was not so capable.

With ample evidence already available to scientists, it is now difficult for asteroids to scrub their "counts". However, is the asteroid really a "dragon killer"? If the asteroid did not hit the earth 65 million years ago, would dinosaurs continue to multiply to this day? Just how much "asteroids" were responsible for the mass extinction in the late Cretaceous? These are still difficult to solve.