No, Seriously, What killed the Dinosaurs?

What killed the dinosaurs seems like an easy question to answer since we have heard about it for so long. An asteroid slammed into the Yucatan Peninsula producing toxic ozone and carbon monoxide poisoning that killed all the dinosaurs. The more advance people get and scientists look at it, the more complicated the answer becomes. There are three possible asteroid impacts and long-lived super volcano that could have caused the extinction. The newly discovered Boltysh crater in central Ukraine makes the case that Earth was hit by an asteroid shower around 65 million years ago. One theory suggests the Deccan lavas spewed immense amounts of poisonous sulfur dioxide gas into the atmosphere. “The gas would have the dual effect of choking air-breathing animals and preventing sunlight from reaching Earth’s surface.” Although there are no new evidence of what might have created the extinction, there are still theories out there that are being put into action.

This article relates to science because it talks about the gases that could have caused the extinction. Carbon Monoxide, also called carbonic oxide is a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas that is slightly lighter than air. It consists of one carbon atom and one oxygen atom, connected by a covalent double bond and a dative covalent bond.

We care about these things because we need to know and understand the past, so that we may learn how to prevent them from occurring. Learning about the atmosphere and the natural chemicals that are created helps us to learn to interact with the environment, and learn what we can do to stop the many dangerous things that happen each day.

Source:http://news.discovery.com/earth/no-seriously-what-killed-the-dinosaurs.html