A Meteor will Strike the Earth and Destroy All Life Forms Essay example

The author mentions that the oceans could all evaporate and the Earth probably couldn’t handle those conditions. This would lead to the release of hydrogen gases into outer space, losing a vital gas, and turning into our neighbor planet Venus. Although this is highly unlikely, many organisms cannot withstand such dramatic change over such a short time, the Earth would reach a point where only rats and cockroaches could survive in such conditions. Humans would even have a difficult time adapting as seen by the Mayans who died because of a minor setback on rain. The author believes that a lot of carbon will settle in the rock and be “a record, written in stone of a world changed by a single

Such an era came to a staggering end from the grand celestial meteoroid which assaulted life into

Impact craters are geologic structures formed when a large meteorite, asteroid or comet smashes in to a planet or a satellite. Meteorites are small rocks in space that hit the earth's atmosphere at a high velocity. Throughout their history they have heavily bombarded all the inner bodies in our solar system. In this experiment we will use marbles as our meteorites, these will be free falling objects that will be used to copy an asteroid impact. The surfaces of the Moon, Mars and Mercury, where other geologic processes stopped millions of years ago, record this bombardment clearly. On the Earth, however, which has been

Background Research: A meteoroid is a small chunk of rock that has been broken apart from a much larger chunk of rock called an asteroid, these chunks of rock are located in between Mars and Jupiter, called the asteroid belt. When a meteoroid has been knocked out of the asteroid belt and is on it way towards earth the meteoroid is now a meteor, if the the meteor hits the ground it changes to a meteorite. When the meteorite makes contact with the ground it causes a crater to form, craters are holes on the ground made by the impact of a meteoroid coming towards earth.

pag). This seems to be the case because from the beginning, one creature has emerged into a more-developed one. It would be logical for humans, being the most evolved, to emerge into a greater creature with something of "superhero" qualities, one who would be invincible, and a species that would never perish. In comparison to this theory, anthropologist, John Hawks, states, "If in the far distant future, habitable planets beyond our solar system were colonized by Earth migrants, that could provide the necessary isolation for new human species to evolve" (Owen; n. pag). Although this seems highly likely to many, human evolution will cease to exist after this meteor hits Earth. Humans are a very vulnerable and fragile species, a species that can only handle so much. David Christian of Big History says that "humans would drown if we were left in water for too long and would freeze or asphyxiate if we were shot ten kilometers into the atmosphere" (Christian; n. pag). This is exactly why the theory of the destructive meteor is, in fact, accurate. If, or when, this meteor strikes, humans will face the same struggle in which the dinosaurs faced and they too will be classified extinct. The magnitude of this meteor will act like a self destruct button, destroying everything in its path, leaving no sign of further evolution

Now that we can observe earth from outer space, we can find impact crater’s on the earth’s surface. The three largest craters are found in Ontario, Canada , Vredefort, South Africa and the Chicxlub crater (Carter). All three of these craters are massive and the Chicxlub crater has been hypothesized to have destroyed the dinosaurs. According to Charles S. Quoi, in order to make an impact the size of the Chicxlub crater, an asteroid would have had to have been at least six miles in diameter and hit earth at a speed of 12.4 miles per second. In comparison, the largest fragment of SL9 to hit Jupiter was slightly more than 2 miles in diameter (Koppes). To answer our question then, yes, meteorite’s have collided with earth, but will they again

Large amounts of iridium – a chemical element that is not a part of the Earth’s crust composition – were originally found in rocks of Europe and United States, and have been found everywhere ever since. Iridium, common in meteorites, is a testable evidence of the disaster hypothesis. Gould continues that the Cretaceous debacle, which is one of five episodes of mass dying, occurred at the same time as the large comet might have smashed into the Earth. The author believes this is not merely a coincidence, rather, it is a proof of the cause-effect relationship. The demise of a wide range of habitats along with the extinction of dinosaurs gives an inestimable advantage to the disaster theory over other claims, the author adds. The comet struck the Earth, and habitats, from terrestrial to marine, died with geological suddenness. Finally, this hypothesis has had an impact on the study of an atomic war and its consequences. A nuclear war, Gould says, may cause a huge drop in temperatures and result in the extinction of humanity. Testable evidence, study, development, contribution – all this makes good science.

The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, also known as the K-T extinction, was a global extinction event that struck the Yucatan Peninsula at the end of the end of the Mesozoic Era, 65 million years ago. Walter Alvarez first discovered a meteorite big enough to be called a small asteroid that hit the Earth, creating the Chicxulub crater. Once the asteroid struck the North American continent, there were igneous rocks underneath the crater that contained high levels of a rare siderophile element, iridium. This catrostopic event had a massive effect on the environment, as several mammals, birds, and plants became extinct. It also caused an impact winter that made it impossible for plants and plankton to photosynthesis, as 75% of inland animals and 90% of marine species were affected. Not only did it cause an impact winter, but the asteroid also caused volcanic eruptions, climate change and sea level rise. Geologists have also found rich dinosaur, plant and marine fossils to illustrate the K-T extinction. This event not only caused species to become extinct, but it also had an adaptive radiation, as other species were able to diversify.

Although Martin is correct in his observation that humans have a direct impact on extinction, he cannot refute the fact that meteors can cause extinction. His argument in regards to dinosaur extinction was flawed. Martin argues that every child in the first grade knows that dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago. However, there is no evidence that there were humans on this Earth when dinosaurs existed so his whole argument becomes null. He cites factual inaccuracies in this

This final blow would have sent earth into a nuclear winter. According to this theory, dust caused by the asteroid collision disrupted plant growth by blocking out the sunlight needed for photosynthesis for nearly a year. A chain reaction occurred as plants died off, so did the herbivores relying on the plants, and then the carnivores that relied on the herbivores. Around 75% of species became extinct, including dinosaurs, mammals, giant marine lizards, fish, birds, and insects. Meanwhile, seawater flooded around 40% of the world’s continents ("Mass Extinctions").

This researcher proposes that the dinosaurs did not die of heat, in fact she thinks the opposite, that they froze to death instead. Both articles have the same idea about a meteorite hitting the earth yet there is no concrete evidence as to what caused the meteorite to strike and what it did when it got here.

How exactly the asteroid damaged the Earth remains unclear, but the power released by such an impact is unquestionable. Effects possibly include reduced sunlight over a period of several months which possibly led to the decline or even total halt of primary production (via photosynthesis). One of the dominant signatures of the extinction at the KT boundary was the low activity of primary production, the possibility of reduced sunlight is high (Schulte et al. 2010) . Even if the primary production proved to be on a decline when this impact occurred, there is still some uncertainties as to where exactly the impact hit. This was why asymmetries in subsurface features of the Chicxulub crater were observed via geophysical methods were analyzed and it was calculated from estimates that the

In our solar system today there are over 30,000 asteroids flying around in all direction colliding with other asteroids and planets, without a care about the destruction they might convey. Our planet Earth is caught right in the middle of all of this action and is liable to entire extinction of any life forms on the planet if a large enough asteroid crosses its path. Any single asteroid has the possibility to erase thousands of years of history and wipeout the human race, as we know it.

Armageddon was not created as a whimsical fantasy of Hollywood masterminds. In fact, its basic premise stems from a distinct historical event. In 1994, for the first time in the history of humankind, scientists were able to witness in detail the collision of two solar system bodies. Having circled Jupiter in an enclosing elliptical pattern for what scientists speculate to be hundreds of years, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 was wrenched out of its orbit by Jupiter’s gravity and into a collision course with the planet’s dense atmosphere. This collision produced "bubble[s] of superheated gas that blazed with 50 times the infrared luminosity of the entire planet, briefly blinding some telescopes." Comet fragments pounded Jupiter at an estimated speed of 60 kilometers per second (134,000 miles an hour), and although the largest fragments measured no more

Nobody knows for sure exactly how the dinosaurs became extinct. However scientists have speculated for decades about possible events that caused the dinosaurs to die out. Possibilities range from asteroids, to volcanoes, to climate changes. One of the more popular or well-known extinction theories involves the belief that an asteroid struck the Earth, causing devastating effects, and triggering mass extinctions around the end of the Cretaceous period.