It was, to put it mildly, a bad day on Earth when an asteroid smacked Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula 66 million years ago, causing a global calamity that erased three-quarters of the world's species and ended the age of dinosaurs.
The immediate effects included wildfires, quakes, a massive shockwave in the air and huge standing waves in the seas. But the coup de grâce for many species may have been the climate catastrophe that unfolded in the following years as the skies were darkened by clouds of debris and temperatures plunged.
Researchers on Monday revealed the potent role that dust from pulverized rock ejected into the atmosphere from the impact site may have played in driving extinctions, choking the atmosphere and blocking plants from harnessing sunlight for life-sustaining energy in a process called photosynthesis.
