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Giant Meteor Struck 3.5 Billion Years Ago

Posted by michael on from the earth-in-the-corner-pocket dept.

Jay Moore writes "According to this article on CNN, scientists believe a giant meteor 12 kilometers across struck the earth some 3.5 billion years ago making it the oldest known meteorite to have hit the earth."

8 of 26 comments (clear)

  1. Ah, the typical meteorite impact picture by therealmoose · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why does every news story involving meteorite have to have this picture? Where is it from? Is it a secret messages to terrorists?!

    1. Re:Ah, the typical meteorite impact picture by !splut · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Well, judging from the little "NASA" on the side of the image, I'd say it's from NASA. Whether it's more or less comforting to know that NASA is spending free time depicting the total annihilation of the Earth, rather than sending messages to terrorists, I don't know.

      --
      The angel in the oatmeal.
    2. Re:Ah, the typical meteorite impact picture by cryptor3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That sounds like something I said yesterday...

  2. Measurement Systems... by ztc · · Score: 3, Informative

    The summary of the article should read either 20 kilometers or 12 miles (not 12 kilometers) as the article mentions.

    1. Re:Measurement Systems... by Scrameustache · · Score: 2

      Actually, the people at Nasa don't have any problems wih it, they use the international unit system. Its the subcontracters that still use the old english imperial units and mess things up.

      Ya know, for a country so bent up on not being subjects of the crown...people do hang on to the old ways quite a bit.

      --

      You can't take the sky from me...

  3. Re:This got me thinking by Treeluvinhippy · · Score: 3, Funny
    I know its nowhere as near as siple as that,but just my 2 cents

    Keep your money, you'll need it.

    --
    >
  4. 12 miles is peanuts by Tablizer · · Score: 2

    It is theorized that a Mars-sized object smacked into the Earth to create our moon some time a bit earlier than this one.

    12 miles is a pebble in comparison to Mars. It is like the difference between being hit by a bicycle and by a Mac truck.

    --
    Table-ized A.I.
  5. Get With the Times by Sentry21 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Seriously, I know Slashdot isn't a real news site, but it's pretty sad when something that happened 3.5 billion years ago is considered news. It's over dudes, it's old news, let's try and keep up to date, shall we?

    --Dan