Overview
- About 66 million years ago, an asteroid roughly 10 kilometers wide hit near today’s Caribbean and set off planet-scale chaos.
- Near the impact, firestorms, intense heat, and supersonic winds destroyed life and infrastructure in a vast radius.
- The strike sent dust and soot around the globe within hours, blocking sunlight and triggering wildfires and acid rain.
- Within about a year, average surface temperatures fell by roughly 15°C, which froze landscapes and starved large animals, including all non-avian dinosaurs and marine reptiles.
- Small survivors such as mammals, turtles, and ground-dwelling birds endured in pockets and later spread, reshaping ecosystems and paving the way for mammal dominance.