Three-quarters of the plants and animals that were wiped out by asteroids hitting Earth 66 million years ago include dinosaurs.

About 66 million years ago, an asteroid strike wiped out three-quarters of the planet's flora and fauna, including dinosaurs.
British scientists have found that the impact could be more destructive than existing studies suggest, with more than 300 billion tons of sulfur thrown into the atmosphere, leaving the world in a "frozen" state for years.
team led by Joanna Morgan, a professor at Imperial College London, excavated the Hicks-Suruber crater in the Gulf of Mexico last year to collect and analyze rock samples that "record" the impact of an asteroid on Earth.
they calculated that an asteroid about 12 kilometers in diameter was coming from the northeast at a speed of 18 kilometers per second, crashing into a shallow sea at a 60-degree angle.
impact caused trillions of tons of rock to vaporize instantaneously.
rocks contain large amounts of sulphides and carbonates that produce carbon dioxide.
, citing data from Morgan's team, reported on October 31st that the material produced by the impact was thrown into the atmosphere at high speed, including about 325 billion tons of sulfur and 425 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
long-term carbon dioxide will cause a greenhouse effect, but the impact of a large amount of sulfur and soot will immediately lead to very serious "cooling" effect.
that this could keep global temperatures below zero degrees Celsius for years, while the effects on sea water temperatures could last for centuries.
the rapid changes in the climate have made it difficult for many species to escape extinction.
a team led by Giulia Brugger of the University of Potsdam in Germany earlier this year modeled the climate change after an asteroid hit Earth: if the impact ejected 100 billion tons of sulfur and 1.4 trillion tons of carbon dioxide, the average global surface temperature would drop by at least 26 degrees Celsius, in which case the Earth would remain below zero degrees Celsius for three to 16 years.
Morgan says the study's estimate of the amount of sulfur produced by impact is somewhat conservative.
her team worked out the direction, angle, and nature of the rock at the time of the asteroid impact, so that the gas released by the impact could be more accurately calculated.
"If 100 billion tons of sulfur were to give Juilliard that kind of cooling effect, it would have been worse at the time, based on the new data we have now."
team's study was published On October 30th in the latest issue of the American Journal of Geophysical Communications.
New computer simulations show that dinosaurs disappeared from Earth 66 million years ago when an asteroid hit the earth, and that the asteroid's impact will produce a large amount of debris, suggesting that the Earth will be plunged into darkness for up to two years.
new findings with the support of nasa and the University of Colorado Boulder.
team used computers to simulate what Earth might look like at the end of the Cretaceous period after a large asteroid hit the Yukatan Peninsula below the Gulf of Mexico.
the impact of an asteroid impact is likely to trigger earthquakes, tsunamis and even volcanic eruptions across the planet.
new computer models could help scientists understand why more than three-quarters of the species on Earth died at the time, and some survived.
lead researcher at NCAR, NCAR scientist Charles Bardeen said many large animals on land may have been killed as a direct result of impacts, but animals that live in the ocean, or those that can dig holes or abscond underwater, survive.
", "We studied the earth after the earthquake, the tsunami, and the scorching heat.
we want edited what we think is the long-term consequences of soot and the effects of these consequences on abandoned animals.
According to Dr. Christopher Lowy, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, speaking at a meeting of the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) in Houston in March, core samples show that life soon re-emerged around the world after the asteroid hit the Yucatan Peninsula.
but new research suggests that life on Earth will be very different in the years after the collision.
simulations found that 15 million tons of soot will be sent into the atmosphere after an asteroid hits Earth, forming a barrier between Earth and sunlight.
at first, it will be as dark as the night in the moonlight.
slowly, the soot layer would spread out to reveal the sky, but for a year and a half, photosynthesis was impossible.
because the asteroid has damaged plants on Earth, the lack of sunlight will have the most serious impact on phytoplankton in the ocean.
researchers say that even if the initial estimate is wrong, only a third of the soot is delivered into the air, and it is unlikely that photosynthesis will continue for a year.
sunlight will cool the Earth's land by 28 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) and the ocean by 11 degrees Celsius (20 degrees Fahrenheit).
upper atmosphere, soot causes the atmosphere to warm, and water vapor in the stratosphere produces hydrogen, damaging the ozone layer.
because of complex computer modeling, it assumes that most of the coal ash is made up of very small particles that are quickly ejected after the initial impact and flowed all the way to the strata.
may not be the end of the story, it will at least spark further debate in this area.
source: Xinhua News Agency.