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Rings Around Earth From Ancient Meteorites

Posted by Hemos on from the ring-around-the-rosey-pocket-full-of-posey dept.

HorsePunchKid writes "According to an article on CNN (SNL version), ancient meteorites may have glanced off of the surface and shattered, causing rings around the Earth. These rings, which may have persisted for hundreds of thousands of years, could have had a profound effect on the climate in tropical regions, where the rings would block out light from the Sun. Still rather speculative, but the theory may help explain some patterns observed in the geological record. The idea has been around for a while, and some scientists are skeptical."

4 of 162 comments (clear)

  1. I still favour the fire theories... by purduephotog · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Given a large impact that engulfs some 20% of the land mass in flame...

    Said impact ejecta would be thrown up and into the stratosphere, circle, and land somewhere opposite (say 3/4) around the globe. More impacts, more fire. Lots of soot to block out light.

    I can see a 'ring' of debris specifically targetting the tropics region, but i just have trouble dealing with the numbers of objects required to decrease the light that significantly resulting in a sphere of Earths size being cooled that significantly.

    Suffice to say, the ring is there, but I'd still throw my support behind half the planet burning up as a more tangible reason.

  2. about skepticism by benploni · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > and some scientists are skeptical.

    ALL scientists are skeptical. It's a basic requirement of the scientific method, and a reason it works wso damn well.

    1. Re:about skepticism by Burgundy+Advocate · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Unfortunately, it usually doesn't work that way. Scientists divide themselves into their seperate camps, and sometimes turn a blind eye to the inconsistencies in their own theories.

      The sad fact is that scientists are human. They have their own allegiances -- not always to the scientific method. Some are quite petty.

      "a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it"
      --Max Planck

      Thomas Kuhn had a lot to say about this. Learn more here.

      --
      Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
  3. Can I be skeptical, too? by shimmin · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I'm not a planetary scientist, but I'm still skeptical. So a rock gets blasted off the surface of the earth with some ballistic trajectory. Unless something acts on it near apogee to circularize its orbit, that orbit will return to the point it began (which lies inside the atmosphere).

    So most of the rocks from such a collision will either be on an escape trajectory to become interplanteary debris, or secondary meterites that will fall over the next few days.

    Where's the circularizing force in these models to put debris into long-term stable orbits?