“For the dinosaurs, the worst-case scenario is exactly what happened … because it put more hazardous debris into the upper atmosphere and scattered it everywhere, the very thing that led to a nuclear winter.”.

New computer simulations by an international team of researchers suggest the asteroid that doomed the dinosaurs, 66 million years ago, struck Earth at the “deadliest possible” angle.

That is, these researchers say, it struck at an angle of about 60 degrees, thereby maximizing the amount of climate-changing gases thrust into the upper atmosphere.

The – from Imperial College London, the University of Freiburg, and the University of Texas at Austin – examined the shape and subsurface structure of the Chicxulub meteorite crater in what’s now Mexico.

Gareth Collins, of Imperial College London is the new work’s lead author.

We know that this was among the worst-case scenarios for the lethality on impact, because it put more hazardous debris into the upper atmosphere and scattered it everywhere – the very thing that led to a nuclear winter.

The upper layers of earth around the Chicxulub crater contain high amounts of water as well as porous carbonate and evaporite rocks.

Bottom line: A new study suggests that the asteroid that doomed the dinosaurs struck Earth at an angle of about 60 degrees, which maximized the amount of climate-changing gases thrust into the upper atmosphere.