Supercomputer simulates the impact of the asteroid that wiped out dinosaurs.

Some 66 million years ago, an asteroid hit the Earth on the eastern coast of modern Mexico, resulting in up to three-quarters of plant and animal species living on the planet going extinct – including the dinosaurs. Now, a team of researchers equipped with a supercomputer has managed to simulate the entire event, shedding light on the reasons that the impact led to a mass extinction of life. 

The simulations were carried out by scientists at Imperial College in London, using high performance computing (HPC) facilities provided by Hewlett Packard Enterprise. The research focused on establishing as precise an impact angle and trajectory as possible, which in turn can help determine precisely how the asteroid's hit affected the surrounding environment.

Various impact angles and speeds were considered, and 3D simulations for each were fed into the supercomputer. These simulations were then compared with the geophysical features that have been observed in the 110-mile wide Chicxulub crater, located in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, where the impact happened.

The simulations that turned out to be the most consistent with the structure of the Chicxulub crater showed an impact angle of about 60 degrees. Such a strike had the strength of about ten billion Hiroshima bombs, and this particular angle meant that rocks and sediments were ejected almost symmetrically.

This, in turn, caused a greater amount of climate-changing gases to be released, including billions of tonnes of sulphur that blocked the sun. The rest is history: firestorms, hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes rocked the planet, and most species disappeared from the surface of the Earth. Read the free article.