Space Hazards ( Neo 's )

On February 15 2013 a meteor streaked across sky and exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia. It set off one of the largest explosion of its kind, according to Western scientists. Flying glass and debris caused most of the injuries from the meteor strike. The shock wave violently jolted the city of Chelyabinsk. Coincidently, it hit on the same day that astronomers were watching another large rock pass Earth by just 17,200 miles. As it turns out, the Earth getting hit by meteorites isn’t so unusual.

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

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

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

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.

Basically when the asteroid impacted earth it most likely killed the bugs, insects and small animals that walked or were in the ground at the time.

It is giant, rip in space in which everything is sucked in. A black hole sucks everything within a certain vicinity inside of it depends on how large it is. If a coin sized black hole were placed at the center of the earth, the earth would be destroyed. But not all of the earth would be sucked in only a partial amount. However all life on that side would be obliterated. Asteroids are a big factor in the role of destruction. Imagine yourself inside a drifting spaceship in the middle of nowhere and a giant rock is hurtling towards you. Pretty scary right? Well that’s pretty much what it feels like when an asteroid is hurtling towards you. If an asteroid hits your ship you’re pretty much screwed. The asteroid could puncture the ship and suck out all the air inside, then you will have to fix the exterior manually. Which exposes you to more problems. So asteroids are not a good thing. Air is also a big factor in space. What happens if your in the middle of exploring and your air runs out? I think you know. Red light flashing on the side of your helmet a rock has punctured your suit depleting you of your oxygen. Next thing you know your crew leaves you behind and you’re stranded on Mars. That's actually from a movie, but you get the point right? Good well, I haven’t covered all of space but if I were to we’d be here the rest of our lives! So that’s all i’m

Many people often assume the asteroid completely wiped off the land and marine species with just the impact of the asteroid, but was rather the tipping point of what came next. In fact Choi stated that “ "We have shown that these events are synchronous to within a gnat's eyebrow, and therefore, the impact clearly played a major role in extinctions, but it probably wasn't just the impact.” ( Choi). The ultimate reasons for the dinosaurs and other species extinction was the blockage of sunlight which initially darkened and chilled to earth to extreme temperatures ( Jones). At this point many animals and even plants started to die off because of the chilling conditions, but that wasn't the only reason for the extinction of these species. Soon after the dust had settled and the earth was able to receive light, the planet initiated a greenhouse affect. Which not only put the remaining species at high temperatures, but their food also became inhabitable (Choi). The evidence of an asteroid theory is supported by the impact crater, rare metal, melted rock, fractured crystals, and the fossil record (Jones). The impact crater is actually one the main key examples of why the asteroid may have been responsible for the cretaceous mass extinction. It showed the asteroid landing on the Yucatan peninsula, and traveling at 30 kilometers per second (Jones). Not

Asteroids left unchecked can be very dangerous to Earth. According to the Crater Data Chart, some craters have a diameter of “300 km”. That would cause so much destruction if it landed in a place where people live! Also, in the Tunguska Meteor Impact, it says some asteroids (like Tunguska) release “energy equivalent to about 185 Hiroshima bombs”. One Hiroshima bomb was absolutely catastrophic. Imagine how much damage one hundred and eighty five of those bombs could do!

In an article written by Jasper Hamill of Mirror, it was stated that although humanity is expected to survive its close encounter with a space rock next week, the Earth is not out of danger just yet.

Earths atmosphere is constantly bombarded 24 hours a day by outer space. Small objects such bolides and meteors burn up in the Earths atmosphere most often harmlessly. Space dust is continually raining down on Earth from the outer portions of the Solar system as well without notice. The most dangerous and disrupting of all, is the Coronal Mas Ejection or CME.

Although asteroids could destroy Earth if they come in contact with it, small meteors that

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

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").