Double Impact

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For years, scientists thought the asteroid that struck Chicxulub, Mexico, was the single event that caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs.

But a new paper suggests that Earth experienced a double impact 66 million years ago.

Researchers from Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University recently confirmed the presence of a second asteroid crater from around the same period, off the coast of West Africa.

Dubbed the Nadir Crater, this five-mile-wide impact site lies almost a thousand feet below the Atlantic seafloor.

Using cutting-edge 3D seismic imaging technology, geologist Uisdean Nicholson and his team were able to visualize the Nadir Crater with unprecedented detail.

“There are around 20 confirmed marine craters worldwide, and none of them has been captured in anything close to this level of detail. It’s exquisite,” Nicholson said in a statement.

The images showed the crater’s various layers and allowed scientists to peel back sedimentary rock to look deeper into the impact’s structure.

“This is the first time we’ve ever been able to see inside an impact crater,” Nicholson told the Independent.

The Nadir asteroid was likely around 1,300 feet wide and slammed into Earth at a velocity of more than 12 miles per second, creating a fireball 24 times brighter than the sun. The resulting explosion was powerful enough to generate a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, triggering a massive “train of tsunamis” across the Atlantic.

The team noted that, in terms of energy, the asteroid couldn’t compete against the Chicxulub dino-killer.

“The (Chicxulub) impact produced as much explosive energy as 100 teratons of TNT, 4.5 billion times the explosive power of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. It was the beginning of the end,” according to the US National Science Foundation. “What followed was irreversible climate change, species decline and extinction. In short, it wasn’t the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.”

Still, the authors are eager to investigate further and are now planning to drill down to the crater to retrieve samples that may help decode the exact environmental impact of the Nadir strike.

If confirmed, this dual-asteroid scenario could provide a fresh perspective on what made the dinosaurs’ fate so catastrophic.

While the chances of a similar catastrophic event are slim, scientists remain vigilant.

Currently, asteroid Bennu – measuring more than 1,600 feet wide – poses a small but notable risk, with a 1 in 1,750 chance of hitting Earth around the year 2300.

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