the asteroid was 6 mil wide weighing hundreds of billions of tons still compared to Earth it was Tiny how could it wreak such Havoc it would have hit at nearly 50,000 mph the energy released would be equal to about 100 million nuclear bombs a huge mass of superheated debris would have been blasted into space orbiting the Earth before raining back down the Alvarez's thought the dust could have blocked out the Sun for years devastating life this was the hypothesis for how the age of dinosaurs ended