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Some scientists
believe the asteroid, and perhaps other factors, may have led to
the end of dinosaurs. The theory that their demise 66 million
years ago was linked to the asteroid impact was first proposed
in 1980. The biggest piece of evidence is the 110-mile (180-km)
crater near Chicxulub in Mexico.
During the two-month expedition the international team of
scientists will look for clues about how life recovered after
the impact and whether the crater could have been a home for
microbial life.
"The impact caused the extinction of some 75 percent of species
that existed in that period," said Dr Jaime Urrutia-Fucugauchi,
of the Institute of Geophysics at the National Autonomous
University of Mexico.
"It marks the transition of what colloquially, we know as the
era of the dinosaurs to the era of the mammals."
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