Prehistoric meteor shower? |
Prehistoric meteor shower? |
Dec 13 2007, 07:02 PM
Post
#1
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 688 Joined: 20-April 05 From: Sweden Member No.: 273 |
A real weird news story from Nature about meteor damage to pleistocene fossils:
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/071212/ful...s.2007.372.html If traces of this meteor shower has been found in both Siberia and Alaska as the story implies, then multiple impactors must have been involved. Such small meterites would lose speed quickly so the airburst must have occurred at fairly low altitude. |
|
|
Dec 18 2007, 03:23 PM
Post
#2
|
|
Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8785 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
Problem is that the metallic residue does match meteoritic compositions (including Ir enrichment), from what I read. Plus, it seems as if the event may have affected a fairly large geographical area, the possibility of animals being not too injured afterward (also mentioned in the article) to still wander far & wide notwithstanding.
Hmm. Maybe the shrapnel particles don't have to be traveling too fast...maybe they just need to be very, very hot to penetrate the skin & bones (yuck, I know--wouldn't feel good at all for the poor critters). Whatever would blow a metallic meteorite into smithereens like this, you can bet that the smithereens are gonna be pretty warm for awhile. I'm betting on a large iron/nickel body with an unusually high impact velocity, say several tens of km/sec, that maybe took a shallow chord through the atmosphere that allowed it to heat up enough to blow up... -------------------- A few will take this knowledge and use this power of a dream realized as a force for change, an impetus for further discovery to make less ancient dreams real.
|
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 24th September 2024 - 08:42 AM |
RULES AND GUIDELINES Please read the Forum Rules and Guidelines before posting. IMAGE COPYRIGHT |
OPINIONS AND MODERATION Opinions expressed on UnmannedSpaceflight.com are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UnmannedSpaceflight.com or The Planetary Society. The all-volunteer UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderation team is wholly independent of The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has no influence over decisions made by the UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderators. |
SUPPORT THE FORUM Unmannedspaceflight.com is funded by the Planetary Society. Please consider supporting our work and many other projects by donating to the Society or becoming a member. |