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> They lived at a time when there were surely more asteroids hitting the Earth than now (the system was younger, so there was more debris flying around), so the
by jsweojtj 7y ago
> They lived at a time when there were surely more asteroids hitting the Earth than now (the system was younger, so there was more debris flying around), so they surely had more warning than we do: craters, smaller impacts, etc.
This is a tangential point, but they weren't living in an appreciably younger solar system. 65 million / 4.5 billion is ~1.5%. So, the solar system (and the Earth) was 98.5% of its current age.
- magduf 7y agoMaybe not, but it was still a little bit younger, so there should have been somewhat more asteroid strikes, even if only by a couple percent. Moreover, the dinosaurs were around for over 150 million years. Hominids have been around for only about 2M years, and modern humans only about 200k. They had loads of time to observe asteroids, realize they're a threat to their existence, and develop advanced technology and an effective and credible space program to deal with the threat. But they were just too lazy, or too busy fighting each other, to bother doing this, and look what the consequences to them were.