Rings Around Earth From Ancient Meteorites

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."

Comments

Ring around the planet?

[RomSteady]

Damn...I thought I only had to worry about "ring around the collar." [grin]

Seriously, though, does anyone else seem to notice that we only notice problems when scientists discover an explanation for it? We were polluting like mad, and then scientists discovered the ozone layer was being depleted, and we suddenly "noticed" global warning. People were smoking like chimneys, and scientists discovered that what is in cigarettes causes someone with a genetic predisposition for cancer to generate tumors, and we suddenly "noticed" that people who smoked lived a little bit shorter lives.

I'm not intending to say that ignorance is bliss, but sometimes, it seems that way.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go have unprotected sex with this person over here, or has science found out something about that recently...[grin]

Re:What happened to the debris?

[archen]

rings are in fact fundamentally unstable. Eventually the rings around all the other planets (which is a LONG time by human standards) will eventually degrade and disapear. Which is sort of sad to think of Saturn without any rings.