Earth plunged into darkness due to dinosaurs-killing 10-km-wide asteroid: Study

According to a latest research led by a group of scientists from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), an asteroid due to which dinosaurs became disappeared 66 million years ago, have also plunged earth into darkness for two years or so.

The asteroid which is 10 km in width has already attacked planet earth resulting tremendous amounts of soot in the atmosphere. The process had also absorbed light and blocked photosynthesis for around a year-and-a-half.

The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that, the asteroid attack is also the reason behind the climate change of our planet cooling the surface and heating the upper atmosphere.

Talking about the same, lead resaercher Charles Bardeen, scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) has said, "The extinction of many of the large animals on land could have been caused by the immediate aftermath of the impact but animals that lived in the oceans or those that could burrow underground or slip underwater temporarily could have survived."

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"Our study picks up the story after the initial effects -- after the earthquakes and the tsunamis and the broiling. We wanted to look at the long-term consequences of the amount of soot we think was created and what those consequences might have meant for the animals that were left," Bardeen was quoted further.

Researchers said, the laetst findings are also considered as significant for several other studies, including modelling a "nuclear winter" scenario or a temporary cooling of our earth.