Have you ever seen a meteor shower in action? If so, you probably just remember them as trickles of light in the night sky. As for others, well...the debris behind these streaks of light, meteoroids, are impending doom.
Asteroids are normally portrayed as the compacted piles of rubble bringing forth the catastrophic commencement of the apocalypse in films like **Ice, **Meteor Storm, **Armageddon, etc.
After all, there are a couple of theories to how one of the earliest global disasters had occurred; **the mass extinction of prehistoric animals, and an asteroid or comet crash being one of the most popular among these theories. This concept is still debated, as it was previously believed that volcanic activity was the only factor contributing to the temperature changes in the atmosphere. Although, there is still an idea where there wasn’t just one cause killing off an era of species, but different environmental factors combined.
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**In February of 2013, a small meteoroid, **less than 20 metres in size, had exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. The airburst resulted in significant damage to the buildings within proximity and **injured over 1000 civilians.
** This meteor has 26 to 33 times as much energy as that released from the atomic bomb detonated in Hiroshima in World War 2, which had the energy of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT. Luckily the atmosphere absorbed most of the energy the meteor in Chelyabinsk had.
If a meteoroid that diminutive could have such a strong impact, what of those that are within our solar system and are remarkably larger? Or could a cluster of these smaller meteoroids appearing in the form of meteor showers stand as a possible
A meteorite hitting the earth would appear burning while coming into the stratosphere of the earth. If the meteorite remained large enough to enter the atmosphere and stay intact, the meteorite would stay large throughout its entry into the stratosphere and the troposphere. Only when the meteorite reaches a couple of miles above the earth will it break up into many flaming pieces. At this height, the meteorite would spread out into a wide enough radius to impact Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Since the troposphere only reaches 6 miles into the air, the meteor would have to break apart in the stratosphere.
"The blast killed an estimated 80,000 people instantly; thousands of others died later of radiation
The damage of this explosion was deadly. The eruption cased over 57 deaths. Every single tree in the forest and on the mountain fell down and burned. Ash blew everywhere. Cars on the road got stuck in ash and people could not get out. They suffered and died. During the explosion the top blew off, witched caused 1,300 feet difference.
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
The light of the explosion then turned orange as the atomic fireball began shooting upwards at 360 feet per second, reddening and pulsing as it cooled. The characteristic mushroom cloud of radioactive vapor materialized at 30,000 feet. Beneath the cloud, all that remained of the soil at the blast site were fragments of jade green radioactive glass created by the heat of the
There are many key events, but the most crucial incident came on July 15, 1994. Eugene Shoemaker, Carolyn Shoemaker, and David Levy had discovered a comet in March of 1993 that was on an impact path with Jupiter (Koppes). The comet, SL9(Shoemaker- Levy 9), consisted of 21 large lumps of ice that would cause more destructive force than thousands and thousands of 58-megaton bombs . From this event, witnesses from scientists to civilians with telescopes watched as the comet created brilliant flashes of light and left dark impact spots on Jupiter (Koppes). This incredible event led to the question, “what if we knew a comet like SL9 was headed towards earth?” In 1998, NASA started the NEO(near earth objects) Observations program to find and track asteroids that will come close to earth(Chodas). Today, this program has identified over 13,000 asteroids and comets that come close to earth. But let us put into perspective what is meant by close before we start preparing for the end of the world. Presently, the most recent “close call” was on June 16 when Asteroid Icarus passed by earth at a distance of over 50 million miles(Brown). That is over 21 times the distance from earth to the moon
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 asteroid colliding with Earth left evidence in the planets core and mantle with iridium and shocked quartz. Iridium is present in extraterrestrial objects like asteroids and meteorites. The asteroid impact
This annotated bibliography explores sources on the Tunguska event that happened in 1908 Russia. Lacking an impact crater and many years passing before eyewitness accounts were documented in the face of such widespread devastation, numerous theories emerged as to the source of this event. While this happened more than 100 years ago, it continues to generate interest in finding out the exact source of the explosion. Most of the more far-fetched theories have been abandoned in the past few years, and the current thinking is that it was a comet fragment or meteor that exploded in the air due to the extreme forces exerted by the atmosphere on entry by either of these cosmic bodies.
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").
“A minority disputes this theory, arguing that other events-such as volcanic eruptions, sea-level changes or a series of impacts-were to blame for the spectacular loss of species that occurred at the transition between the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods…”
It is believed that thousands of meteorites weighing around a pound each impact the Earth every year, but it usually goes unnoticed because the small rocks land in unpopulated areas such as large forests or open ocean. Meteoroids are residual chunks of ice and rock from comets or asteroids, but once they enter Earth’s atmosphere they are called meteors. They do not receive the meteorite name until they make an incredibly long journey through Earth’s atmosphere and touch down onto Earth’s surface. It is thought that around 90 to 95 percent of meteors burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. The Perseid meteor shower is the most popular meteor shower of the year because of its breathtaking show around August 11 and 12. Comet Swift-Tuttle is responsible for the Perseid meteor shower. Its fragile
Ever since the history of Earth has been studied using fossil records, extinctions have always been the object of fascination and interest, particularly the mass extinctions that occurred throughout Earth's history. A mass extinction can be caused by disruptive global environmental changes, where large numbers of species have become extinct (Urry et al. 2008). There have been five major extinctions documented based on fossil records over the past 500 million years, but the Cretaceous (KT boundary extinction – a name that meant it began the Tertiary era) extinction caught a lot of
The asteroid impact extinction theory began in 1980 with Luis and Walter Alvarez, a father and son team. They theorized that an asteroid struck the Earth at the close of the Cretaceous period, causing devastating effects and mass