One-Million-Year Cycle? Earth's Major Asteroid or Comet Impacts (Today's Most Popular)

 

 

          

The image above shows the nucleus of Halley's Comet --an orbiting iceberg visible from Earth every 75 years. Stephen Hawking believes that one of the major factors in the possible scarcity of intelligent life in our galaxy is the high probability of an asteroid or comet colliding with inhabited planets. Through Earth's history such collisions occur, on the average every one million years. If this figure is correct, it would mean that intelligent life on Earth has developed only because of the lucky chance that there have been no major collisions in the last 70 million years. Other planets in the galaxy, Hawking believes, on which life has developed, may not have had a long enough collision free period to evolve intelligent beings.

We have observed, Hawking points out in Life in the Universe, the collision of a comet, Schumacher-Levi, with Jupiter, which produced a series of enormous fireballs, plumes many thousands of kilometers high, hot "bubbles" of gas in the atmosphere, and large dark "scars" on the atmosphere which had lifetimes on the order of weeks.

It is thought the collision of a rather smaller body with the Earth, about 70 million years ago, was responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs. A few small early mammals survived, but anything as large as a human, would have almost certainly been wiped out.

“The threat of the Earth being hit by an asteroid is increasingly being accepted as the single greatest natural disaster hazard faced by humanity,” according to Nick Bailey of the University of Southampton's School of Engineering Sciences team, who has developed a threat identifying program.

The team used raw data from multiple impact simulations to rank each country based on the number of times and how severely they would be affected by each impact. The software, called NEOimpactor (from NASA's "NEO" or Near Earth Object program), has been specifically developed for measuring the impact of 'small' asteroids under one kilometer in diameter.

Early results indicate that in terms of population lost, China, Indonesia, India, Japan and the United States face the greatest overall threat; while the United States, China, Sweden, Canada and Japan face the most severe economic effects due to the infrastructure destroyed.

The top ten countries most at risk are China, Indonesia, India, Japan, the United States, the Philippines, Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Nigeria.

“The consequences for human populations and infrastructure as a result of an impact are enormous,” says Bailey. “Nearly one hundred years ago a remote region near the Tunguska River witnessed the largest asteroid impact event in living memory when a relatively small object (approximately 50 meters in diameter) exploded in mid-air. While it only flattened unpopulated forest, had it exploded over London it could have devastated everything within the M25. Our results highlight those countries that face the greatest risk from this most global of natural hazards and thus indicate which nations need to be involved in mitigating the threat.”

What would happen to the human species and life on Earth in general if an asteroid the size of the one that created the famous K/T Event of 65 million years ago at the end of the Mesozoic Era that resulted in the extinction of the dinosaurs impacted our planet.

As Stephen Hawking says, the general consensus is that any comet or asteroid greater than 20 kilometers in diameter that strikes the Earth will result in the complete annihilation of complex life - animals and higher plants. (The asteroid Vesta, for example, one of the destinations of the Dawn Mission, is the size of Arizona).

How many times in our galaxy alone has life finally evolved to the equivalent of our planets and animals on some far distant planet, only to be utterly destroyed by an impact? Galactic history suggests it might be a common occurrence.

The first thing to understand about the KT event is that it was absolutely enormous: an asteroid (or comet) six to 10 miles in diameter streaked through the Earth's atmosphere at 25,000 miles an hour and struck the Yucatan region of Mexico with the force of 100 megatons -the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb for every person alive on Earth today. Not a pretty scenario!

Recent calculations show that our planet would go into another "Snowball Earth" event like the one that occurred 600 million years ago, when it is believed the oceans froze over (although some scientists dispute this hypothesis -see link below).

While microbial bacteria might readily survive such calamitous impacts, our new understanding from the record of the Earth's mass extinctions clearly shows that plants and animals are very susceptible to extinction in the wake of an impact.

Impact rates depend on how many comets and asteroids exist in a particular planetary system. In general there is one major impact every million years -a mere blink of the eye in geological time. It also depends on how often those objects are perturbed from safe orbits that parallel the Earth's orbit to new, Earth-crossing orbits that might, sooner or later, result in a catastrophic K/T or Permian-type mass extinction.

The asteroid that hit Vredefort located in the Free State Province of South Africa is one of the largest to ever impact Earth, estimated at over 10 km (6 miles) wide, although it is believed by many that the original size of the impact structure could have been 250 km in diameter, or possibly larger(though the Wilkes Land crater in Antarctica, if confirmed to have been the result of an impact event, is even larger at 500 kilometers across). The town of Vredefort is situated in the crater (image).
Dating back 2,023 million years, it is the oldest astrobleme found on earth so far, with a radius of 190km, it is also the most deeply eroded. Vredefort Dome Vredefort bears witness to the world’s greatest known single energy release event, which caused devastating global change, including, according to many scientists, major evolutionary changes.

What has kept the Earth "safe" at least the past 65 million years, other than blind luck is the massive gravitational field of Jupiter, our cosmic guardian, with its stable circular orbit far from the sun, which assures a low number of impacts resulting in mass extinctions by sweeping up and scatters away most of the dangerous Earth-orbit-crossing comets and asteroids.

The Daily Galaxy via University of Southampton and rationalvedanta.net

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Image credit: Halley Multicolor Camera Team, Giotto Project, ESA

Comments

[Vic]

Great stories but I must chuckle somewhat at some of the theories contained within. Scientists seems to build stories and theories from what they call intelligence. They are basing their own beliefs on theories yet they seem to think they have all the answers, or at least more answers than religion has.

[DwarfGalaxy]

Science may have few answers, religion has none at all.

[Rick]

There is evidence that a much greater celestial impact occurred..... Teaser Trailer For Publication Release Aug. 2012 www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-YeyXyxeyE

Coming Aug 2012 - A Book By Richard L. McGuire Jr. -
" Yellowstone Super Volcano.... Remnants Of A Celestial Impact "

Evidence So Compelling That I Hereby Claim The Right Of Discovery To Name The Event....

The : "R.L. McGuire Jr. Yellowstone Impact"

The book is packed with some eye opening facts and documentation that this is a impact crater and Yellowstone Super Volcano is still reeling from that collision over 65 million years ago.

Was this the real KT boundary event? Is this evidence of a Shoemaker Levy event here on earth? How big was the impact? Is there geological evidence for a impact? Is there a smoking gun that points to a collision with earth? All of these and more are examined in the book, and give compelling reasons that this was a Celestial Impact Crater That Is Still Reeling To This Day!

Publication To Be Available Through Amazon Books - Release Date Aug 2012
__________________________________________________________
For More Info Email: Rick@Magma-Tech.US or go to www.magma-tech.us

[Newtoon]

To Vic : Science has far less answers than religion, but have far more questions.

[Matthew]

@ Newtoon its easy to have all the answers when you get to make them up.

[Scott Reimert]

Minor typo:

"The first this to understand about the KT event is that is was absolutely enormous:"

was perhaps intended as:

"The first thing to understand about the KT event is that is was absolutely enormous:"

Interesting article - thanks. Editor's note: Corrected...thanks for the heads up.

[Chuck]

I must chuckle somewhat at the amount of posters on this site who espouse the concept of religion having more answers than science when there is no empirical evidence whatsoever to support your beliefs. "Trust me" or having "faith" is not proof of concept. Go away, please.

[resonanz]

“...Jupiter, our cosmic guardian,,,,” - with respect and deference to Mr. Hawking, i am tempted to step back and place this accurately anthropomorphized description into historical and mythical context, e.g., how many of our ancient cultural myths might speak about real cosmological events.

[pepe]

There is a little mistake where it says that the Yucatan impact was estimated in 100 megatons, the correct number is 100 teratons (that´s 100000000 megatons)

[Lee]

The fossil records suggest that there are two cycles governing major extinction events on our planet. One being that our solar system passes in and out of the galactic plain of the Milky Way; The other is when we are in a galactic position that exposes us to the bow shock of our galaxy traveling through space. In every extinction event life has always bounced back but always with more diversity of species and existing on a higher platform of energy flux density. The evolution of the biosphere has a limit to the energy flux density it can reach without cognitive creative intervention, A species such as human beings are a predetermined necessity for a biosphere to rise to the next higher platform. With the introduction of Human beings with their creative abilities marks the next step for the biosphere rising to the next higher platform for the purpose of launching itself into the cosmos, insuring its survival long after the parent planet has been swallowed by its star.
The above paragraph describes a individual biosphere living its life cycle in its galactic invironment in the universe at large. Glass Steagal