About 66 million years in the past, an asteroid slammed into Earth and the planet instantly went darkish.
The influence and its aftermath had been catastrophic. Tsunamis inundated coastlines, earthquakes rattled the bottom, acid rain poured from the skies and wildfires scorched the terrain. Roughly 75 % of species, together with all nonavian dinosaurs, went extinct.
That day is the middle of “Impression: The Finish of the Age of the Dinosaurs,” a brand new exhibition on the American Museum of Pure Historical past in New York Metropolis. “There’s little question — properly, arguably at the least — that it was the worst day of the final half billion years,” says Roger Benson, the museum’s curator of dinosaur paleobiology.
Guests first step into life earlier than doomsday. Inside a dimly lit corridor, a life-size mannequin of a mosasaur, a marine reptile, assaults a long-necked plesiosaur. Close by, a Triceratops adorned with quills — a controversial speculation primarily based on fossilized pores and skin — tears down a small tree. That diorama, primarily based on fossils from the Hell Creek formation in North Dakota, contains different animals resembling turtles, birds and a Didelphodon, an extinct predatory mammal harking back to a Tasmanian Satan.
There’s extra to do than have a look at dioramas. One interactive show quizzes guests on their every day habits to search out out what Cretaceous critter they’re most like. One other performs sounds of sure animals, together with Beelzebufo, a big predatory frog.
Then, influence.
A 6-minute movie in a small theater describes, in excessive element, the destruction wrought by a Mount Everest–sized asteroid crashing into Earth with the drive of 10 billion atomic bombs. The asteroid immediately vaporized in a blast zone hotter than the floor of the solar. Its collision despatched trillions of tons of rocks into the sky, blocking most daylight for a 12 months and a half. Many vegetation, and the animals who ate them, died. Right here, the exhibition’s dim lighting feels deliberate — the room’s darkness makes an already grim subject really feel weightier.
Within the subsequent room, the as soon as thriving Triceratops is now a pile of bones and guests can scent the wildfires. Spotlights draw consideration to shows describing how researchers have constructed the case that an asteroid brought about the mass extinction occasion, together with the invention of the Chicxulub crater off the coast of Mexico. A big globe exhibits the lots of of spots the place scientists have discovered iridium, a uncommon metallic and an indication of extraterrestrial influence.
Lacking is point out of one other speculation: volcanism. That’s as a result of the broad scientific consensus is that the asteroid influence was largely accountable, says Denton Ebel, a curator within the museum’s division of Earth and Planetary Sciences. “We don’t want volcanoes. The influence alone explains it,” Ebel says. “Explains the timing, explains the knife edge in historical past that’s recorded within the rock file.”
The asteroid’s destruction made method for brand new life. Throughout the corridor, guests learn the way traits resembling the power to interrupt open nuts helped some animals survive within the aftermath and the way rainforests crammed emptied landscapes. They’ll additionally discover out whether or not their Cretaceous creature from the sooner quiz lived or died. Because the world recovered, an Age of Mammals started that persists right this moment.
There’s a small likelihood that one other huge asteroid influence may threaten Earth. However the exhibit notes that with right this moment’s know-how, we might see it coming and hopefully stop one other devastating asteroid influence. An interactive show permits guests to apply themselves, redirecting an asteroid’s path with lasers or with a probe, akin to NASA’s DART mission.
For individuals who might fear about an impending apocalypse, “Impression: The Finish of the Age of the Dinosaurs” is a reminder {that a} thriving world thrown into chaos can finally thrive once more.
