Images Dated 11th January 1995

Artwork of Yucatan asteroid impact

K/T asteroid impact. Artwork depicting the impact of an asteroid on Earth about 65 million years ago. The impact occurred at the boundary between the cretaceous and tertiary era (K/T boundary), and is thought to have contributed to the demise of the dinosaurs. Land forms are shown as they were at the time, with the impact in the Yucatan Peninsula, what is now Florida to the upper right, Cuba to the right, South America to the lower right and Mexico to the left. Scientists believe that the asteroid which hit Earth was up to 20 kilometres in diameter, and that the impact created six months of total darkness and decades of low global temperatures

© JULIAN BAUM/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY