ASTEROID SPIKE: Earth could be caught in SHOCK crossfire, warns new study

The team studied one billion years of asteroid craters on both the Earth and the Moon.

Mr Gernon, who is associate professor of Earth science at the University of Southampton, said: “It’s perhaps fair to say it was a date with destiny for the dinosaurs.

“Their downfall was somewhat inevitable given the surge of large space rocks colliding with Earth.”

The Moon has faced a similar number of asteroid hits over the same period, the study concluded, but unlike on Earth, where a combination of geologic processes such as erosion and plate tectonics gradually erase impact craters, those on the planet’s satellite remain on view.