Iridium, Asteroids, and the Periodic Table of Death and Mystery

Think you’re having a bad day? Dinosaurs at the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event say, “Hold my beer.” Why? Because 66 million years ago—give or take—an asteroid approximately 50 miles wide hit the earth, catches pretty much everything on fire for 100s of miles, creates tsunamis 1000 feet high, and pitches the world into darkness for a year or two. Bye-bye dinosaurs. And how did we puny humans figure this out? The periodic table element, Iridium, and opposable thumbs. References for this episode can be found at the following website: ⁠⁠⁠https://carolpotenza.com/hydrogen-and-the-periodic-table-of-death/⁠⁠⁠ More from Carol Potenza and to sign up for her monthly newsletter, please visit her at ⁠⁠⁠https://carolpotenza.com/⁠⁠⁠ Music for the Periodic Table of Death was created by Gioele Fazzeri and published under Creative Commons License.