[Rockhounds] Dinosaur-killing asteroid was a rare rock from beyond Jupiter, new study reveals

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

The space rock that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was a rare
strike from an *asteroid*
<https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/asteroids> beyond Jupiter, a
new study details. The finding pins down the nature of the fateful space
rock and its origin within our solar system
<https://www.livescience.com/tag/solar-system>, and may benefit technology
that forecasts asteroid strikes on our planet.

Most scientists agree that the *Chicxulub impactor*
<https://www.livescience.com/animals/dinosaurs/dinosaur-killing-asteroid-did-not-trigger-a-long-nuclear-winter-after-all>
—
named after the community in modern-day Mexico near the 90-mile-wide (145
kilometers) crater carved by the rock — came from within our solar system.
But its precise origins remain unclear, due to a lack of clear chemical
evidence that wasn't contaminated by Earth's own material. Now, in remnants
of the impactor collected from European regions of our planet's crust,
scientists have found the chemical composition of a rare element called
*ruthenium* <https://www.livescience.com/34836-ruthenium.html> to be
similar to that within asteroids hovering between the orbits of Mars and
Jupiter.

The element is a "genetic fingerprint" of rocks in the main asteroid belt,
where the fateful city-size rock was parked before it struck Earth 66
million years ago, *Mario Fischer-Gödde*
<https://geologie.uni-koeln.de/arbeitsgruppen/geo-kosmochemie/team/dr-mario-fischer-goedde>,
a scientist at the Institute of Geology and Mineralogy at the University of
Cologne in Germany who led the new study, told Live Science. The asteroid
was likely nudged toward Earth either by collisions with other space rocks
or by influences in the outer solar system, where gas giants like Jupiter
harbor immense tidal forces capable of disturbing otherwise stable asteroid
orbits.

The findings rely on a new technique that essentially breaks every chemical
bond bolstering a rock sample while it is stored in a sealed tube, allowing
scientists to measure the specific levels of ruthenium in the Chicxulub
impactor.

https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/dinosaur-killing-asteroid-rare-rock-beyond-jupiter