"Dinosaur Prophecy"

KT event sequence for the NASA Immersive Earth's "Dinosaur Prophecy "

The NASA Immersive Earth's "Dinosaur Prophecy" show's last sequence fittingly ends with the infamous asteroid strike that scientists feel could have caused their extinction. For this animation Home Run Pictures modeled and animated a tyranosaurus and a tricertops,two dinosaurs found in the Dakota region of North America. The timeframe is the Late Cretaceous, as the asteroid strike called the KT event took place 1000 miles to the south. The impact that is believed to have hit at a northerly glancing angle threw thousands of small glass-like nodules far to the north... small projectiles that may have rained down on the dinosaurs in a storm of hail-like fire.

Beginning with a dramatic view of the asteroid streaking through the atmosphere, we follow the flaming mass as it descends... our view a rocket-like ride down through the clouds. The impact in present day Mexico creates a massive explosion throwing material high into the atmosphere, some raining down later while covering the Earth with a sun-blocking cloud of dust.

Our tyranosaurus' and triceratops' morning is interrupted as the sky grows dark and the firey hail begins. Scientists have found thousands of small glass-like nodules burried in layers close to dinosaur fossils from this last era of the big creature's dominance of the Earth.

Our fast moving scene comes to a close as we transition from the fleshed out visualizations of the extinct animals to a scene in a mocked up present day museum where four young children's imagination has them dreaming about what may have happened to the tyranosaur, now a big skeleton on display.

Click here for Quicktime movie

The NASA Immersive Earth Project is a five year funded program to create educational immersive planetarium shows that deal with Earth Science... Rice University's Space Institute and the Houston Museum of Natural Science are the key coordinators