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

I still favour the fire theories...

[purduephotog]

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.

Re:I still favour the fire theories...

[Ioldanach]

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.

Except that a fire that large would leave a layer of soot that could be detected, and no such soot has been detected (at least at the 35 million year climate disturbance).

Re:I still favour the fire theories...

[Plutor]

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

--Robert Frost

Wrong

[ACNeal]

We already know that the climate of the earth has never changed since the beginning of time. That is until the last 50 years or so, when man has started to burn fossil fuels and using hair spray.

This is totally unbelievable. The climate change is totally man caused, and we are the only people that can change it.

Re:Wrong

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

Maybe I'm responding to a troll here

Yup

Anyhoo, the only reason I personally worry about humans affecting the climate is that there is evidence that the climate of the earth has swung erratically many times. Human civilization developed when it seemed to settle down a bit. If we have another ice age, civilization as we know it is fucked.

Course, maybe *not* burning fossil fuels is going to cause a massive climate change (ie/ perhaps a greenhouse effect will delay the inevitable ice age). In which case, we're fucked.

Fucked if you do, fucked if you don't.

Fuck, eh?

(Damn, that was a gratuitous use of profanities... Kids, don't read this post!)

Re:Wrong

[Steve Franklin]

This is precisely what happened during the last period of global warming, from about 5000 to 3000BC, when most of North Africa was quite fertile, a period associated by some with Plato's tale of Atlantis, possibly the area south of the Atlas Mountains toward the Western Sahara fed by a river flowing south from the Atlas into the Rio del Oro. It remains to be seen whether that warming had anything to do with the advance of civilization at the time. It will also be interesting to see if the long dry river reappears.

Re:Wrong

[Pfhor]

Yeap.

Or of course, we could atleast compensate and anticipate such drastic change in the global climate, instead of plodding along dumbfounded with our heads up our asses as anything we could possibly could do passes us by.

Re:Wrong

[Xouba]

In fact, the climate change is not totally man made. There has been a lot of climate changes along the history of Earth, and there will be yet a few more until the End of Time (tm).

I read some of this in a page about paleography, but I don't find the link now :-/ I'll try to explain, anyway. It made sense when I read it, so I guess it makes sense now too :-)

Earth has had warm and cool times. There were some times (like the ones the dinosaurs lived) of warm global temperature, reaching mid temperatures of 20. This means crocodiles (sp?) and palm trees near the poles, tropical humid weather all across the globe, etc.

And then there were the glacial periods, which we know a bit more: hairy rhinoceros, mammoths, snow a go-go, and that stuff. Man ("homo sapiens", I mean) appeared after one of these, IIRC.

The times of transition from one to another were usually marked by global extinctions and another funny events.

So, in my humble and not remotely knowledgeable opinion, global warming is caused by men *accelerating* a natural proccess, not *creating* it. It's bad anyway, but it's different :-)

Re:Wrong

[ErikZ]

Any major climate change will fuck civilization as we know it.

Re:Wrong

[kanthoney]

You appear to believe that the melting ice caps will cause global extinction. They won't. Simply move your children further inland, and they'll be quite safe.

PS I walk to work. Is that OK?

Re:Wrong

[Kintanon]

Your children? Why don't you do it....
What's with the constant notion that 'Our Children' will fix everything? Our children are no more likely to do anything than we are, and they aren't substantially smarter. So why not you get off your ass and do something to help? Maybe we could go for the novel concept of doing something about the problem ourselves instead of hopeing that someone in the future will fix the problem so we don't need to worry about it? Really, if everyone says, 'Our kids will fix it..' then who is going to fix it for real? Your parents probably thought the same thing about you too y'know.

Kintanon

Re:Wrong

[Scrameustache]

Massive climate change has happened in the past without man's help. And some of those changes have been much more extreme than what we have witnessed in the last 150 years.

Yes, and people die of natural causes so murder is ok huh?
Just because there have been other catastrophic climate changes and massive extinctions doesn't mean we are not causing this one and that we should just keep repeating our mistakes and let it happen or make it worse.

I believe that dealing with a little extra heat in our enviroment is more manageable than dealing with ice a mile thick. YMMV.

Say that to the next flood/hurricane/tornado that destroys your town.

We are not heading for an ice age. Sure, there seems to be an ice-age cycle and we would be approximatly due for a new one, but in geological terms, the error factor is of thousands of years. Plenty of time for civilisations to rise and fall. In the meantime, we have caused a hole in the ozone layer, we've made the planet way more radioactive than it was before, and we're buring the forest and even the fossilised forest really really fast. You think that's not a problem because it isn't in your own back yard, but we are doing it, its happening, and its dangerous. So we don't know exactly what will happen because nothing of this scale has ever been done before, but we do know that we are causing a climate change. How do we know? Because of rational thought, it goes like this: For every action there is a reaction of equal propostion. We are dumping megatons of climate changing pollutants. You expect that there will be no reaction to this? Do you also expect Santa to bring you gifts at Xmas?

Re:Wrong

[Arandir]

You are indeed responding to a troll. A funny troll, to be sure, but a troll nonetheless.

The point of the troll is that a significant majority of environmentalists are proponents of the idea that nature can do no wrong and industrialized humanity can do no good.

Re:Wrong

[cp99]

The point of the troll is that a significant majority of environmentalists are proponents of the idea that nature can do no wrong and industrialized humanity can do no good.

But do they really believe this?

As far as I can tell, no important environmentalist makes this arguement.

Re:Wrong

[cp99]

Temperatures as recorded by satellites show no change above that suggested by the 11-year sun spot cycle.

And your scientific peer reviewed evidence for this is?

So, we have evidence of no change recently,

Rubbish.

Land based tempertures have steadly increased over the last 50 years (by approx. 0.1 K/10 years). This increase is still noted when urban heat islands are taken into account.

Sea surface temperture has also steadly increased.

Deep sea measurements of ocean temperture have also shown a increase in temperture over time.

A increase in the infrared absorption spectra of the atmosphere has been observed.

Northern Hemisphere annual snow-cover extent (SCE) has decreased by approx. 10% since 1966, as observed by satellite.

Over the last 30 years the Northern Hemisphere sea-ice extent has also decreased.

The sea ice thickness in the Arctic was measured by military subs from the 50's to the 70's. When it was remeasured in the 90's, a large drop (approx. 40%) was observed.

Near surface perefrost in the Northern Hemisphere has also been observed dropping over time.

This is just a quick review of some indicators of temperture which all point towards a increase in surface tempertures.

and massive evidence of great change in pre-history.

The increase in temperture has been incrediblely quick when compared with past natural temperture changes.

From this you conclude that man is helping current change?

Him and the vast majority of the worlds climatical scientists.

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:Ring around the planet?

[HorsePunchKid]

That idea is actually discussed to some extent in The Dancing Wu-Li Masters, albeit in the context of physics. I guess the book is somewhat dated now, but I think it's still well worth a read if you're interested. Basically, one of the chapters brought up the notion that none of these particles (particularly the "strange" new ones... kaons, pions, and whatnot) didn't seem to exist until we came up with a theory that implied that they should exist. Think of the electron, for example. We didn't have any clue about it until some guy started doing crazy experiments. People had been happy to accept electricity as some kind of fluid up until that point. Just food for thought. I personally don't see much value in the idea :).

Repost from Tuesday

[tbmaddux]

Look here.

Weekend Update

[yerricde]

Does anybody care to write a Saturday Night Live style "Weekend Update" satire of this news story?

rings and gravity and stuff

[io333]

Here is a weird Usenet post I put up a few months ago just to show the world that I am clueless.

But I thought it was an interesting post at the time & I'd love to see it get modded up 'cause the resulting conversation between some of the even less cluefull here I would find entertaining.

Re:rings and gravity and stuff

[io333]

This is the original post from June of this year:

OK, I am NOT a physicist. I don't what I'm talking about. But I figure
someone here can tell me how I am wrong.

This is my silly little theory:

Given that:

1. Large planets have rings systems that rotate along the equatorial plane
of the planet.

2. Stars have planets that rotate along the equatorial plane of the star.

3. Galaxies have stars that rotate along *something*, and this something
might be a black hole.

Could it be a reasonable explanation that:

1. The very act of mass (especially a large mass) *spinning* has a
gravatational effect.

2. These effects intensivy as mass increases and as the rate of spinning
increases.

3. As the rate of spinning increases, the gravitational effect, whatever it
is, increases. Furthermore, as the rate of spin approaches the
speed of light, this effect becomes very large.

4. One of the properties of this effect is that it causes dust rings to
form around large spinning planets, planets to orbit around large spinning
stars in a plane, and stars to form into a galactic plane around large
spinning black holes.

And then, if that is a reasonable explanation, could we then:

1. By looking at the mass of the rings in relation to a large spinning
planet, come up with a good estimate at the rate of spin and/or
the mass of a black hole at the center of a galaxy?

2. Maybe star clusters (those are galaxies without a plane, right?) are
around stationary black holes?

Please feel free to tear my quaint little amateur theory apart. Thanks!!

--io333

Which was followed up by (myself):

Oh yea, two more questions:

If this effect is exists, what in the world happens if you take a small
sphere and spin it at the speed of light (well just below it of course)?

And again, if the effect exists, what does that mean about all of the
teeny particles that make up all matter spinning really fast in
random orientations? It certainly wouldn't be the *cause* of gravity,
right?

Re:rings and gravity and stuff

[io333]

so galaxies have a common formation process too?

So...

[ealar dlanvuli]

These guys don't have any real proof nor even claim a likelihood that there were rings. They just say it could have happened. It's one of many possible explainations for what might have caused some of Earth's atmospheric changes.

I guess that's one way to get published.

Billy Mays

[huntz0r]

If you've got tough, stubborn ring around the earth, OXI-CLEAN is your answer! It's the Stain Specialist!

about skepticism

[benploni]

> 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.

Re:about skepticism

[Burgundy Advocate]

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.

Re:about skepticism

[RayBender]

The fact is, the CO2 produced by humans is a fraction of the total amount of CO2 produced by nature. I don't dispute that we generate CO2. I dispute that it makes a difference. Our CO2 production is far overwhelmed by nature's CO2 production.

They why do we see a steady rise in the level of atmospheric CO2 over the last 50 years, an increase that is about what we'd expect based on the amount of fossil fuel burning, etc? (Again, the Keeling curve). Natural CO2 releases may be larger, but if they are in equilibrium with CO2 sinks, even a small increase in net CO2 input can cause a steady rise in atmospheric CO2 levels. (At least until the sinks catch up, which takes time, and may not occur at all). Either way, we are seeing an increase, and isotopic signatures show that the carbon comes from fossil fuels (no C12).

Another way to make the point: look closely at the Keeling curve and you will see small variations that are in sync with the seasons. This is telling you that natural changes in CO2 respiration exist, are measurable, and are smaller than the large human-induced trend. In raw numbers, humans dump about 6Gt (gigatons of Carbon) per year into the atmosphere. The biosphere absorbs about half of that, the rest stays in the air.

I don't dispute that there could be some net heating. I DO dispute that it's significant

Well, there are several groups that have made estimates of the heating. As I recall it will likely be between 0.5 and 6 degrees (C) in the next century, with a peak in the probability function around 1-2. That is a larger increase than in other interglacial times, and it puts us in a climate regime that we haven't been in for at least a few million years (high CO2, warm. The typical situation has been colder with less CO2). We can argue a lot about detailed effects, but the climate will be different from now. There are a lot of models that suggest shifts in agriculture, and sea level rise. They may not be a problem for some rich guy in Colorado, but it will be a serious problem for Bangladesh (they have many). Of course, if you don't care about Bangladesh, fine. But keep releasing CO2 and in the next century it will be a problem for Florida.

No, you don't have to come up with a reason for the system to show natural warming .

If you accept that we are causing an increase in CO2, and you accept the physics of IR absorbption, my argument stands - why is the warming we see NOT due to the CO2 we release?

There have been very sudden movements in both directions in the past

For climate records such as ice cores it is often impossible to get good time resolution - so you can't tell the difference between an instantaneous rise and one that takes 2000 years. The rise in the past century is at least as rapid as any we have seen, and faster than most. Also, there may have been climate change, but nothing says it didn't have serious effects on life at the time. There have been large species die-offs related to climate change in the past. If anything, this reinfoces the point that it may be hazardous to jolt the climate severely. maybe not in terms of wiping out all life on the planet, but certainly in terms of causing e.g. agricultural disruption.

To pretend that those scientists that are promoting the theory of global warming have absolutely no financial interest in the results and are any more professional or ethical than those paid for by oil companies is very, very naive.

I don't know about that. There tends to be an extra layer of insulation between government-funded scientists (who by and large worry about global warming) and the financial interests. Certainly with the current U.S. administration there is no incentive for government scientists to exaggerate the seriousness of global warming.

The problem is that there are politicians out there advocating drastic changes in our social, political, and economic systems based on partial, in-progress results.

Actually, they seem to be advocating small changes in how we produce and consume energy, changes that will likely have to be made sooner or later anyway (we can't go on burning oil this inefficiently forever). In fact, dealing with global warming may well stimulate innovation and help the economy. After all, improving energy efficiency make the economy work better. The converse is certainly true - look at the former Soviet Union for an example of what can happen to a wasteful industrial economy.

Another problem is that the scientists themselves are telling us (the world AND the politicians) what we need to do. That's not science, that's politics.

Since when does the mere fact that someone is a scientist disqualify him or her from making policy recommendations? After all, in the U.S. every idiot is entitled to an opinion, logical or not. If someone who is intelligent and well-educated spends a lot of time studying a problem and comes to the conclusion that action is needed, why should we ignore that persons opinion? I know anti-intellectualism is alive and well in the states, but that doesn't make it wise.

Scientists are the "clergy" of the 21st century. When "scientists" start making policy we will again have a theocracy that the "separation of church and state" was supposed to protect us from. Just now the clergy will be made up of "scientists" rather than religious people. The political result is the same.

Now this is a lovely topic for a long discussion, but I have to get back to work. However, I will say this: there is a big difference between science and religion. Religion claims to have a monopoly on the truth, and hence once the Pope or the Mullah or clergy or whatever has spoken (as the mouthpiece of God, of course) there can be no argument. Science, when it works properly, is always ready to admit error. That makes it possible to improve science. Why does this matter? Well, it makes for a big difference in the political end result: a theocracy burns dissenters at the stake. A democracy with engaged scientists has a fruitful, ongoing debate. Also, with scientists involved in the debate you can actually get informed opinions. Otherwise it's just a big gab-fest ,i.e. slashdot.

What happened to the debris?

[InsomniacsDream]

What I want to know is what happened to these rings? Why are there no remanants of them left today?

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.

Well,as an environmentalist

[flyneye]

Well as an environmentalist i say we work to ban these rings,which are obviously a result of Bush's environmental policy.When will they learn that its more important we all live on a technology free planet than to have modern conveniences like metorites.Meteorites have also been connected with SUV use,Alaskan oil and dangerous computer waste from antiquated systems.
We've got to do it for the children.STOP THE RINGS AROUND THE EARTH BEFORE ITS TOO LATE.After all look at saturn,theres no life there.Coincidence?I think not!

Here's the real scoop...

[Anonymous Coward]

Rings? Ancient Meteorites? Surely they must be joking! I heard from a good friend in military intelligence that those rings are really just exhaust plumbs from all the aliens buzzing our planet at low warp!

Tom

Re:whoa

[dalassa]

Actually since the Big Bang occured in all parts of the universe at the same time, because the universe was an infinatly small point, the leftover radiation is everywhere in the universe. It hasn't traveled as much as the universe has increased in size.

Or I could be trying to do astronomy in my head right after I woke up.

Uranus has rings!

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote from my son's book on the planets:

Uranus is a gas giant, filled with methane and many toxic gases. Uranus is blue. Uranus has rings. As you can see, Uranus is full of surprises!

Try reading that to a kid with a straight face!

Re:Uranus has rings!

[ShavenYak]

As long as you use the pronunciation most commonly accepted by astronomers (emphasis on the first syllable, the letter 'a' voiced as a schwa) there's nothing funny about it.

Re:Repost from Tuesday (OT)

[HorsePunchKid]

My apologies. I didn't see the older story. I suppose I could have done a search before I submitted, but then... couldn't the editors have? *sigh* Thanks for the link, in any case.

Can I be skeptical, too?

[shimmin]

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?

Re:Can I be skeptical, too?

[mysticgoat]

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)

No. The model of orbital mechanics that you are using does not contain enough objects. Here is a more realistic way of visualizing the process:

Instead of looking at one chunk of rock in a billiard-like model, think in terms of the spray of material that would be generated by a glancing strike (which is also the most likely kind). Most of the particles in this spray will not have orbital velocity and will rain back down, with the larger and faster ones making a string of secondary impact craters. A much smaller portion will reach escape velocity and become interplanetary objects.

But what is significant is the group of particles whose velocities exceed orbital velocity but do not reach escape velocity. That is a pretty wide range of speeds. At first these objects will also have a wide range of apogees and perigees, but they will mostly be in the same plane. Their own gravitational interactions and collisions will redistribute the kinetic energy of the group as a whole into a ring. In essence, the circularizing agent that you are looking for is the aggregate effect of the group on each individual member, a sort of gravitational peer pressure. Ring formation is probably a positive feedback process, where the proto ring's growth increases its influence on the remaining wild particles.

There are three ring shepherds that will cause any debris ring (any satellite for that matter) to seek an equatorial orbit over time: the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth's equatorial bulge. I imagine the Moon's presence would also assure that any Earth ring would be relatively short lived.

I would also think that any Earth ring formed in this way would be quite bright, at least for a while. I would think the ejecta stream would suck along a lot of air and water vapor through entrainment, and that many of the ring particles would be frosted as they cooled.

I'm not saying I'm convinced that this happened. But it is an intriguing scenario and might go far to explain ice ages and such. One of the more intriguing things about it is that it appears to be testable in several different ways.

Re:Can I be skeptical, too?

[geoswan]

...Try this: Hold a pencil about a foot off the ground on a sunny day and you'll see a shadow. Raise that pencil to an altitude of, say, 1000 feet and you won't see any shadow at all.

Okay, now try this thought experiment. Hold a length of window screen an inch off the ground. If it is close enough to the ground you will see the individual wires. Now raise that screen up a yard or two. The shadows of the individual wires will fade away. But you will still have a shadow the shape of the screen. Raise that window screen the 1000 feet you mention, you won't be able to detect the drop in insolation it causes. But tell me, if the window screen was a couple of square miles in area, do you think the drop in insolation would still be undetectable?

It seems to me the smaller the particle size the greater its ability to block or reflect light. Wouldn't you agree?

Likewise, if you have a non-solid ring of small debris circling the earth at, say, 1000-24,000 miles there will be no effect. Certainly nothing that could effect the climate.

Proof by assertion? Cab you do the math to prove this assertion? Exceot I want you to assume the average particle size is 0.01 millimetres, not the size of a pencil, okay?

Re:Can I be skeptical, too?

[shimmin]

I'm not saying I'm convinced that this happened. But it is an intriguing scenario and might go far to explain ice ages and such. One of the more intriguing things about it is that it appears to be testable in several different ways.

What you describe is plausible for large amounts of ejecta (ala the "Big Whack" that is the current favorite moon formation theory). But the mutual gravitation of the amount of ejecta to be expected by even dinosaur-killer class impacts seems like too small a force to regularize an orbit in a single oribital period.

Lunar sheparding is an intriguing possibility, but orbits that get too near the region of earth-moon equigravitation tend to be chaotically unstable on periods of years -- most of the pieces of the Apollo project on such orbits have since lost them.

Until I see some n-body simulations, this seems like a neat idea, but one too implausible to account for what seems like a fairly common climatological anomaly. It's easy to think of orbital mechanics situations that seem neat and capture the mind, but just don't work (The Ringword is unstable, the Ringworld is unstable. Did the best that he was able, and it's good enough for me...)

Re:Thanks

[_Neurotic]

What Dinosaurs? Excuse me, where are the Dinosaurs in the Bible? Well, which one is it, are we listening to the Bible or not?

Dinosuars are in the Bible.

Space Recession

[Tablizer]

It must have been really hard on the Saturnian tourism industry when the little blue planet up the street suddenly gets gorgeous rings for a while.

Re: Robin Canup must "get" it

[prismatic]

REAL men let go on five ...

Re:Exactly!

[cp99]

Global warming is as real today was the next "ice age" was 20 years ago. Either is possible, neither is certain, and there's very little we can do about either.

Rubbish. Can you name a single peer reviewed scientific paper from 20 years which mentions a ice age (not ones on long term global cooling). Whereas, the science of global warming has hundreds (maybe thousands) of scientific papers used in support of it.

but the climate, in the grand scheme of things, is the same today as it was 20 years ago. The fact that some people are now talking about global warming reflects a knee-jerk reaction to events that happen on a geological timescale.

Not true. The earth's surface is hotter than what it was 20 years ago.

The 9/11 attacks were awful, but if there is one good thing that has come out of the War on Terror it is that no-one has really cared about the whole "global warming" debate in about a year. It's been demoted to its proper level of importance. :)

Is the US news (assuming of course, that you are a American) incredibly different to the Australian news? Because global warming has been all over the Aussie media over the last year.