Scientists finally discover where asteroid that killed the dinosaurs came from

It was not a comet

Scientists think they have finally found where the object that caused their demise came from.

The mass extinction event came about when a rare type of asteroid collided with Earth which led to 60 per cent of the Earth’s species, including its non-avian dinosaurs, being wiped out.

Researchers believe that this led the planet to go through a horrific time where the Earth was covered in ash and the climate became deadly.

Now scientists believe they have solved the mystery surrounding the event that should prevent arguments about the history of the Earth.

Beyond Jupiter, a C-type asteroid formed that gave rise to the Chicxulub impactor, which crashed into Earth and left a large crater.

They came to this conclusion after looking at samples of sediments taken from what is now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Layers of the Earth from around the same period tend to be rich in platinum group elements such as iridium, ruthenium and palladium.

They are generally rare on Earth but quite common in meteorites, though they appear to have spread quite widely during the collision given they are found across the world.

Those samples taken from around the time of the mass extinction event seemed indicative of carbonaceous chondrites, an unusual kind of meteorite.

That suggests that the impactor formed in the distant solar system and was not a comet.

Mario Fischer-Godde, lead author of the study and a geochemist at the University of Cologne said: “Now we can, with all this knowledge… say that this asteroid initially formed beyond Jupiter.

“We cannot be really sure where the asteroid was kind of hiding just before it impacted on Earth.”