Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Killer collisions

A huge chunk of rock hit Earth 65 million years ago, setting off events that wiped out the dinosaurs. That chunk, astronomers now say, was a wayward fragment from a collision between two giant asteroids in the inner part of the asteroid belt, which lies between Mars and Jupiter. The new study adds to the evidence that both Earth and moon have been bombarded by about twice the usual number of asteroid fragments during the past 200 million years.

- Science News (read full story here)

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