Scientists are taking a fresh look at the asteroid linked to the dinosaurs’ extinction, and the latest reporting suggests the object may have belonged to one of the rarest asteroid classes in the Solar System. That detail matters because it could help explain why the collision was so catastrophic for life on Earth.
About 66 million years ago, a huge space rock struck the region that is now the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The impact triggered a global environmental crisis that marked the end of the dinosaurs’ long dominance, along with many other species.
The new angle is not just the size of the object, but its makeup. If the impactor really came from an especially uncommon type of asteroid, researchers say that composition may have influenced how much damage the collision caused and how severe the aftermath became.
The finding adds another layer to one of science’s most studied extinction events. Rather than being only a story about a giant impact, it may also be a story about an unusually rare kind of asteroid hitting Earth at the worst possible time.
