English

The Chicxulub Impactor: Comet or Asteroid?

Earth and Planetary Astrophysics 2021-07-07 v1

Abstract

A recent paper by Siraj & Loeb (2021) entitled "Breakup of a long-period comet as the origin of the dinosaur extinction" attempts to revive the perennial debate about what type of body hit the Earth 66 million years ago, triggering the end-Cretaceous extinction. Here we critique the paper and assess the evidence it presents. To consider a comet more likely than an asteroid requires extreme assumptions about how comets fragment, conflation of carbonaceous chondrites with specific types of carbonaceous chondrites, and a blind eye to the evidence of the iridium layer.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2105.08768,
  title  = {The Chicxulub Impactor: Comet or Asteroid?},
  author = {Steve Desch and Alan Jackson and Jessica Noviello and Ariel Anbar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.08768},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

To be published in Astronomy and Geophysics

R2 v1 2026-06-24T02:14:21.192Z