The Day the Dinosaurs Died (2017)

For 170 million years, some 700 species of dinosaurs ruled the entire earth. Then, about 66 million years ago, as if someone threw a switch, they vanished. Gone. We now know what happened. In "the single worst day in earth's history," an enormous asteroid about seven miles wide, traveling over 40,000 miles an hour, slammed into the Gulf of Mexico. The impact left a crater on the ocean floor that's 124 miles wide and 20 miles deep. The energy released by the asteroid was the equivalent of 10 billion Hiroshima's. The impact not only wiped out the dinosaurs, but also 75% of all life. But how did a local event have such a global impact? That's the question that this 53-minute PBS NOVA documentary film explores, in particular by showing how scientists drilled down into that Chicxulub crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula and taking core samples. This is a fantastic film for family movie night.  I watched it on Netflix. For a lengthy exploration of this topic, see the article with the identical title (but unrelated to the PBS movie) by Douglas Preston, New Yorker, "The Day the Dinosaurs Died" (April 8, 2019).

Dan Clendenin: dan@journeywithjesus.net