Prehistoric meteor shower? |
Prehistoric meteor shower? |
Dec 13 2007, 07:02 PM
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#1
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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. |
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Dec 19 2007, 04:56 PM
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Founder Group: Chairman Posts: 14433 Joined: 8-February 04 Member No.: 1 |
Yeah - the maths of this makes the likelihood of a particle of that size, traveling fast enough to do that damage very very small.
Doug |
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Dec 19 2007, 06:38 PM
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#3
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Merciless Robot Group: Admin Posts: 8784 Joined: 8-December 05 From: Los Angeles Member No.: 602 |
...makes the likelihood of a particle of that size, traveling fast enough to do that damage very very small. Doug I'm inclined to agree, but damned if I can think of another mechanism more effective then an airburst. This may have been an extremely rare event (thank God; it sounds truly ghastly). oDoug...yeah....makes you wonder a bit, doesn't it? This sort of thing may well be far more common on Mars, since the atmospheric drag would be so much smaller on frags. Better make sure future explorers bring Kevlar flak jackets...I'll donate mine in six months when I retire from the Reserves! -------------------- 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.
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