by RICHARD A. KERR
The ultimate culprit? Debris from a collision of two asteroids 80 million years ago may have led to the death of the dinosaurs by asteroid impact. CREDIT/Don Davis
Wanting to bring the master evildoer, not just a henchman, to justice is human enough. So when planetary scientists traced the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago back to a rampaging rock named Baptistina in the asteroid belt “there was palpable satisfaction that the ultimate culprit seemed to have been nailed.
But now a group of astronomers is challenging that claim. Baptistina did blast another asteroid to smithereens, sending a devastating shower of debris into the inner solar system, but that cataclysmic collision probably came too late to have sent the dino killer to Earth, they argue.
Science for more