We know exactly where it fell: in the Chicxulub (pronounced “Chikshulub”) crater in the Yucatán Peninsula of modern Mexico. The asteroid evaporated as it punched through the crust, leaving a crater almost two hundred kilometers across. Molten rocks were hurled into the air, where they formed dust clouds that blocked sunlight for many months. Limestone evaporated, spraying carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. An area hundreds of kilometers around the impact point was stripped of life. Hundreds of kilometers beyond that zone, forests lit up in massive firestorms. At sea, a tsunami formed a wall
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