66,000,000 years ago, the entire course of history changed in an instant

66,000,000 years ago , a giant asteroid almost 20 kilometers wide, or about twice the size of Mount Everest , smashed into the Earth at 12 miles per second per second .

The asteroid smacked into the Yucatan Peninsula , resulting in a massive explosion that created one of the largest known impact craters on Earth at 93 miles in diameter.

Less than one second later, super heated dust, ash, and steam exploded from the depths of the crater.

Chaos that would wipe out 70% of life on Earth , and chaos that would change our planet forever.

The Chicxulub impact, which has been theorized for decades , was only recently discovered.

In 1978 , geophysicist Glenn Penfield and Antonio Carmago were working for the Mexican oil company Pemex as part of an airborne magnetic survey of the Gulf of Mexico , scouting possible locations for oil drilling.

In 1990 , scientists finally confirmed the massive impact crater now buried under deep layers of limestone.

There are some scientists, many scientists, who believe that the greatest threat to our civilization is not war or plague or climate change, but another meteor impact.

In August of 2020 , an asteroid the size of a truck passed only 1800 miles above the Indian Ocean . That's closer to us than a lot of orbiting satellites.