What Really Killed the Dinosaurs?

Today on Discovery Enterprise we present another episode of the acclaimed BBC science documentary series Horizon that investigates the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction that annihilated the dinosaurs and several other species some Sixty Five Million years ago. Was this extinction event really triggered by the impact of an asteroid or comet?

Could one of the best known and most glamorous scientific theories be wrong? Until recently most scientists thought they knew what killed off the dinosaurs. It was a 10 km-wide meteorite which smashed into Yucatan in Mexico. It caused world-wide forest fires, tsunamis several kilometres high, and an 'impact winter' - in which dust blocked out the sun for months or years. It was thought the dinosaurs were blasted, roasted, and frozen to death, in that order.

But now there is increasing evidence the impact theory could be wrong. That suggestion has generated one of the bitterest scientific rows of recent times. Horizon sets out to sort the fact from the fiction.

With stunning CGI graphics and the help of all the key scientists, Horizon explores the growing body of evidence which raises fundamental questions about the impact theory. It seems that the death of the dinosaurs may have been more complex than we had previously thought.

BBC Horizon: What Really Killed The Dinosaurs?