Boom? Wyoming Got Clobbered by an Asteroid 280 Million Years Ago

If a new study is accurate, Wyoming got clobbered by a big rock from space approximately 280 million years ago in a collision that predated dinosaurs.

Every time I see the Bad Astronomy part of SyFy share a story, I wonder if they're pranking us. In this case, it appears they're serious. They just dropped a story that claims an asteroid impacted the Wyoming/Nebraska border 280 million years ago.

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For the record, I don't agree with a lot of modern dating methods, but that's beside the fact. Let's pretend I do. OK, so an asteroid nearly obliterated Wyoming and Nebraska 280 million years ago...where's the proof? Here's a snippet of what they said:

The first of the secondary craters were discovered in 2018 by geologists. They range in size from a few up to 80 meters across, averaging around 30 meters in diameter, enough to drop a pretty big house into. It was initially thought the craters were from a single small asteroid that broke up into pieces, each chunk carving out a small crater. However, new research has uncovered many more such craters in the area, and they are clearly secondaries, and, as a bonus, indicating the direction and size of the much much larger impact

It's an interesting study including a map that shows 31 secondary craters they've discovered and the one massive one which would have been bad news for anyone driving on I-80 near the Wyoming/Nebraska border back in the day. Yes, I know there weren't cars before dinosaurs. We know they rode skateboards. I kid.

I first saw this story shared on the Wyoming sub-Reddit and one of the comments made me laugh. It goes like this:

JuniorAcanthisitta33 - "Just proof that if Nebraska disappeared tomorrow or would take 280 million years for anyone to notice."

That's some funny stuff right there. Feel free to insert your own Nebraska would be a goner humor if you want.

The Bad Astronomy on SyFy article is more than worth a read if you're interested in space rocks that could potentially doom us. If we see Bruce Willis and/or Ben Affleck get in a space shuttle or Morgan Freeman become President, we'll let you know.