Asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs also cooled the Earth

LOS ANGELES: The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs also caused a temporary but devastating “impact winter” — darkening the sky, cooling the Earth and inhibiting photosynthesis, new research suggests.

Sixty-six million years ago, a 6.2-mile-wide asteroid known as Chicxulub struck the Earth off the Yucatan coast, setting off a series of catastrophic events that led to one of the world’s worst mass extinctions.