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 WASHINGTON
(AP) — Researchers studying rocks from Antarctica have found chemical
evidence that a huge meteorite smashed the Earth 251 million years ago
and caused the greatest extinction event in the planet’s history, killing
about 90 percent of all life.
Scientists believe the extinction, which scientists call the Permian-Triassic
event, came some 185 million years before a similar meteorite collision
with the planet killed off the dinosaurs.
The violence of the impact would have caused a huge fireball and sent
billions of tons of dust into the atmosphere, enough to darken the
sun for months. It also would have laid down a layer of dust bearing
the same chemical composition as the meteorite.
from
CNN
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