Argumentative Essay On Asteroids

“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…”

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 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

"The blast killed an estimated 80,000 people instantly; thousands of others died later of radiation

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

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

In the article’ Did NASA fake the moon landing” It said”The documents that even when Earth passes through a particularly intense meteor shower, nothing happens to spacecraft. The November 1999 Leonid meteor storm, the most intense since the dawn of the space age, dramatized this point. Not one of seven­ hundred operational satellites was damaged during the Leonid meteoroid onslaught” ( Villard 48). This important piece of evidence because people say that the micrometeoroids would have sandblasted the spacecraft but even when the earth passed nothing happened to the space.

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.

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

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

I strongly believe that the pterodactyls were affected by the meteor because in the many articles I put/researched here they also said one major thing pterodactyls were very keen to the ground or muddy, swampy

During the first minute of the explosion many injuries where caused by the instantaneous penetrating radiation from the nuclear explosion (3). Other casualties came from burning fires that had ignited throughout the cities from the tremendous heat of the blast (3). The pressure of the blast waves created flying debris, collapsed buildings, and forcibly hurled people to their death (3). Undoubtedly those who survived the initial effects of the blast were very lucky.

Asteroids are large or small chunks of rock and metal flying around space up to speeds of 80 000 km/h. These chunks were believed to have formed millions of years ago during the "big bang". These rocks didn’t form any planets and

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

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").