At https://sciencex.com/news/2026-05-mars-interstellar-visitor-astronomers-thought.html … a Chinese spacecraft orbiting Mars captured images of comet 31/ATLAS. The interloper showed up unusual chemistry. The comet had a much higher co2 to water ratio than expected. Tianwen One saw the comet out of its orbital plane. The big find, we are told, was that the comet’s dust cloud was filled with unually large particles – hundreds of micrometres in size. About the size of coarse sand. About a ton of material was being lost from the comet every second. No jet structures were visible. If Earth had crossed the path of 31/ATLAS, which did not happen, how would that dust have behaved in our atmosphere? Did anything like that happen in the past.
At https://sciencex.com/news/2026-05-asteroid-dinosaurs-triggered-global-fungal.html … the asteroid that struck the Yucatan peninsular had another effect, apart from dispersing tidal waves and generating landscape fires. It may have triggered a global fungal bloom. Fungi may have proliferated across the globe in order to consume all the dead plant and animal remains.
Fungal blooms have already been associated with the Permian-Triassic extinction event. To explore if this was also true of the Cretaceous extinction event geological sites have come up with some intriguing information. A fungal bloom 30,000 years prior to the iridium layer and a fungal bloom in the period following the iridium layer. Does the iridium layer itself define exactly when the asteroid struck – in a way that can be dated and calculated. As in the oft cited 66 million years ago. Or are the sedimentary layers prior and just after the iridium layer also part of the asteroid’s path of destruction on Earth. In other words, if those sediments were laid down quickly the so called lengthy period assigned to the Cretaceous may not be a true reflection of what occurred. It is possible there was more than one event, on top of each other, but that is conjecture. It does make a rethink of the so called Inner Cretaceous Seaway worth an exploration by scientists. This can be seen pictorially in books about dinosaurs designed to be read by children and Joe Public in general. If the sediments were laid down quickly so was the Inner Seaway in which so many tangled bones of dinosaurs have been found. A huge tidal wave generated by the asteroid strike is one possibility. Look at a map and the route of the Seaway in relation to the Yucatan. China and Patagonia also have huge dinosaur graveyards. Are they also associated with an invasion of the land by a marine tidal wave?