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Antarctic Craters Reveal Asteroid Strike
dhuff writes "Scientists using satellites have mapped huge craters under the Antarctic ice sheet caused by an asteroid as big as the one believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs 65m years ago."
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It could have been an explosion from several adolescent Predators when being overtaken by thousands of Aliens?
"One thing that did happen at exactly the same time was the reversing of the Earth's magnetic field." Darn so the water hasn't always drained the same direction? Does the magnetic field being reversed actually affect anything important?
Prof Van der Hoeven said: "The extraordinary thing about this meteor strike is that it appeared to do so little damage. Unlike the dinosaur strike there is no telltale layer of dust that demonstrates the history of the event. It may have damaged things and wiped out species but there is no sign of it."
Cheers,
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
Prof Van der Hoeven said: "The extraordinary thing about this meteor strike is that it appeared to do so little damage. Unlike the dinosaur strike there is no telltale layer of dust that demonstrates the history of the event. It may have damaged things and wiped out species but there is no sign of it."
One thing that did happen at exactly the same time was the reversing of the Earth's magnetic field. There is no other explanation as to why this took place and Prof Van der Hoeven believes it was caused by the impact.
Does this mean we're safe a a few more years
Severe gravitational anomolies...
Meteor impact causes the magnetic poles to shift...
Global water levels rise 2 feet but without any tidal waves beacuse of all of 'ice bergs'...
Is it just me, of is that article have the stench of bullshit about it?
I'd like to think we could do something about this problem, but I wonder if any technology we have could alter the course of an asteroid large enough to be a problem. Do we even have a prototype of something like a fusion rocket that could potentialy move the hundreds (thousands/millions) of tons of mass that these big rocks have?
Have the nuk-lear worryworts made sure that we haven't even researched the possibilities? Best I've ever seen is the occasional schematic of an orion-type starship from decades ago. Screw Ion-Drives. Let's give some money to the big engines...
Quoth the good professor:
The extraordinary thing about this meteor strike is that it appeared to do so little damage. Unlike the dinosaur strike there is no telltale layer of dust that demonstrates the history of the event.
It ploughs through millions of tonnes of ice and snow, then leaves no layer of dust... d'you think it might have, I dunno, melted or something?
More information at The Scotsman, btw.
If they find pyramids under there, stay away from them.
I for one welcome our new asteroid overlords
Hah! Take that Karma!
Obviously, statistically the chance of an individual being killed by a major meteor strike is fairly low, perhaps lower than that of being killed in a terrorist attack and much lower than that of being killed on the roads. But it's the meteor strike that has the potential to kill perhaps 99% of the human race, and this latest evidence seems to suggest that the frequency of such impacts is higher than expected.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I don't dispute Hans' rigor in studying the issue, but how can the correlation of the impact and the magnetic field reversing lead to the conclusion the impact caused the reversal?
And why even compare this 780K yr old impact to what might've done the dinosaurs in 65m yrs ago? It just would confuse people with poor reading skills (*cough* slashdot readers) and lead them to associate this 780K yr old impact with the extinction of the dinasaurs.
Also, the article attemps to explain why the 65m yr old impact would've caused climactic change whereas the 780k yr old impact would not -- I didn't quite understand their argument of why the older impact caused dust clouds leading to extinction while the newer impact did not -- was it because of the composition of ice vs rock?
You know... I was going to ask that question, but figured that yours was the obvious answer. Either that scientist guy's not quite as smart as he would have us think or we're missing something. =)
It's interesting to me that the impact near the South Pole may be the direct cause of a pole reversal (according to the article). Does an impact pole reversal reset the clock between reversals?
Between the impact damage and the pole reversal, it would be interesting to see if corresponding evidence of the strike would be found at/near the North Pole, under the theory that strikes have large effects on the region opposite strikes on the Earth.
-- Gary Goldberg KA3ZYW 301/249-6501 AIM:OgGreeb Digital Marketing Inc., Bowie, MD
That's 24 days ago.
The dinosaurs were wiped out on July 28 2004?
"One thing that did happen at exactly the same time was the reversing of the Earth's magnetic field." Darn so the water hasn't always drained the same direction?
Magnetism has nothing to do with the direction in which water flows in a drain. That would be the rotation of the planet.
Does the magnetic field being reversed actually affect anything important?
Yes.
Things like radiation reaching the planet's surface, stuff like that.
You can't take the sky from me...
a lot of people believe that the 65m impact was centered over land NOT covered by ice and snow, as in the central point in which all current continents used to be connected (pangea).
That impact would have crushed mountains and created enormous amounts of dust from them. The 780k impact hit a huge block of ice and snow, i.e. no dust to scatter in the first place. I really doubt it would have affected any land life at all, antarctica being so far from land inhabited by anything more than penguins and stuff. Ocean life probably got pretty roughed up at least close to the impact.
So the Magnetic pole reversal took place at the same time the impact took place? I wasn't aware that one could affect the pole reversal in any substantial way, even with someone as large as a meteoric impact.
Perhaps it was weakened and on the cusp of a change, such as we are today, and the impact disturbed the core of the Earth enough to cause turbulence in the convection of the molten outer core, and that was enough to cause the reversal to finally occur.
would not be amused.
The dinosaurs seemed to have disappeared about 65 mil ago, no doubt about that. It is believed that an asteroid hit the yucatan (or however you spell it) peninsula about 65 million years ago. They have found several rocks dating back to 65 million years ago using isotope dating in places like florida and others places in the carribean. It is also believed that the world as we know it goes through a mass extinction every 26 million years on average, and that one has happened since the dinosaurs became extinct. So maybe this crater in antartica is just another one, but not the one for the dinosaurs. All this information is what i can remember from a book i read a couple months ago, "Hyperspace" by Michio Kaku
The poor widdle penguins. If they all died, Linus may have picked Walruses instead. Walnix?
Table-ized A.I.
Good thing they did not find a buried pyramid!
http://www.DaveNet.biz/
Impact affects the strength of magnets! Impact on geologic magnet is awesome. Was the reversal instantaneous? If not, how long and what happened to the planet during that time?
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
We have wiped out the dinosaurs a hundred times now all over the globe. They must be like cockroaches.
Does this match up with the proposed theory that humans went through a short period of being reduced to a very few individuals - the so called 'mitochondrial eve' hypothesis?
Jeesh, RTFA!
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
It's called the Coriolis effect, but it's a myth that it affects the direction of water going down the drain. It does however influence large weather systems, so that in the northern hemisphere air circulates clockwise around high-pressure systems and counterclockwise around low-pressure. And obviously vice versa in the southern hemisphere.
This has some interesting effects, such as tornadoes tending to twist counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere, but clockwise in the southern. You probably won't have any use for knowing how it works, unless you're into meteorology, astrophysics, or possibly Trivial Pursuit.
Wow! Only 780 thousand years ago?
At that point our hominid ancestors were strolling around southern Africa. By then we had stone tools and the occasional use of fire. That's really recent in a hominid lineage that goes back, what 6 million years? They lived through a 3-7 kilometer asteroid impact! Can you imagine?
Good thing it didn't land a few thousand miles to the north...
The timing of this event was 780,000 years ago. The timing of a period with a small population from which Homo Sapiens comes is estimated to be between 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. Genetic evidence from mitochondria suggest that we all had the same direct female ancestor about 150,000 years ago. There is evidence that she was somewhere in Africa. There is evidence that the direct male ancestor was substantially more recent than that, the reason for the discrepancy is not known.
The above is from this encyclopedia article. A sanity check of the figures shows that the meteor had nothing to do with the evolutionary event that you're talking about.
The idea that humans went through a period of restricted population should not surprise. The theory of Punctuated Equilibrium suggests that most species arise from a period of rapid evolution in a small isolated population. Most such "experiments" end quietly. But sometimes the new breed cannot interbreed with the original, and successfully outcompetes it. In the latter case, the new species spreads.
Therefore we should expect homo sapiens to have gone through such a period.
It seems Adam's arrival was early and greatly exaggerated.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Humans find an Aztec-Egyptian-Mayan pyramid some miles below the surface near the Antarctic, which turns out to be the Predators' breeding ground for Aliens..
..one of the worst movies I've seen.
Homer: Ahh, not a bear in sight. The bear patrol must be working like a charm. Lisa: That's spacious reasoning dad. Homer: Thank you honey. Lisa: By you're logic, i can claim that this rock keeps tigers away. Homer: Hmm..how does it work? Lisa: It doesn't work. Homer: Uh huh. Lisa: Its just a stupid rock! Homer: Uh huh. Lisa: But you don't see any tigers around here, do you? Homer: (looks around, thinks) Lisa, I wanna buy your rock.
Bugs are just features that have been fixed.
I've met someone who's name was Jesus. Great guy, though he showed me that the divine really does have a sense of humor. You see, his whole name was Jesus Pagan. I kid you not.
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
Assuming the wavefront from the 1st explosion is traveling trivialy slower than the speed of light (in a vacuum):
([Distance between warheads] / c ) = [precision required]
0.05 km / 299,792.458(km/s) = 1.6678204759907602478778835723746e-7 s
Someone please check my math. Its sometimes as bad as my grammer.
However this report raises a lot of questions that it doesn't answer.
First of all, they seem to be talking about a single strike, but they first talk about "the crater" and then later "the holes" and "the craters." Are we talking about one crater or many? Did the person who wrote the article typo, or are the scientists being that unspecific?
Second of all, wasn't the Antarctic continent still near the south pole 780k years ago? That seems to mean that either the meteor hit at a very extreme angle, or it was _far_ out of the elliptic. In either case, it would be a very rare occurance.
On the other hand, magnetic reversals are _not_ a very rare occurance, they happen about once every 700,000 years. Why is he assuming that the very rare occurance caused the frequent and mostly regular occurance? It seems much more likely that it was just a coincidence. "There is no other explanation as to why this took place" yeah, and there is no other explanation for the other several _hundred_ nearly identical events either, because we haven't figured out why they happen yet! So is he proposing that Antarctica gets hit by a giant meteor about every 700k years like clockwork?
Finally exactly how "huge" are these craters, and what were the climatic conditions 780k years ago? If the climate was similar and Antarctica was near the south pole and covered with ice, wouldn't a "huge" strike have melted/dispersed quite a lot of the ice and caused ocean levels to rise?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
The science is so precise that they have to account for the time delay it takes the electricity to travel down wires that are only meters long
So, you are saying that nuclear weapon design is almost as complicated as dual-CPU motherboard design?
The notion that the Coriolis force causes water to drain in opposite directions, in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, is a fallacy.
Dear god, if something is repeated enough...
Well, I'm off to filling my tub and experimenting for myself, thanks.
You can't take the sky from me...
Click here or here.
Are you sure that there wasn't a Pyramid inside of one?
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
I don't know about the south pole impact.
But the impact 65 million years ago at Chicxulub, Yucatan penisula, coincides with the onset of volcanoes which drove africa and india apart. Before the ateroid theory became accepted, it was known that the volcanoes co-incided with the end of the dinosaurs.
Looking on a modern atlas is not going to be conclusive as to whether the impact and the volcanoes were at antipodes to each other, but it does look very likely.
But on a serious note, whether or not this is an ordinary fluctuation is irrelevant in practical terms. If the magnetic field weakens enough to wreak havoc on our expectations (and that could affect much more than just compasses, of course), we should be paying attention to it, whether or not it is "insignificant" in terms of the larger time frame of the universe. Human beings ourselves are likely insignificant in terms of the history of the universe.
not true. we have thousands of years of data preserved in pottery, which aligns its metals when heated in kilns..we use that data to make a map of the field. We also have millions of years of data collected from hardened lava flow in hawaii.. so we have plenty of data.
pm
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
In fact it was a preemptive strike; the asteroids found evidence that the dinosaurs were close to developing weapons of mass destruction.
The rotation of the Earth has nothing to do with which way the toilet drains. It simply spins whichever way it was designed to spin - coriolis effect does not occur at such a small scale as that of a toilet bowl.
How do you know what direction the pottery was facing when it was in the kiln? Wouldn't this only work for kilns found with pottery in them?
Environmentalists take note, we now have the solution to your biggest fears of Global Warming. We just need to refine the technique a bit.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
As far as I have heard the blasting caps used in our modern implosion-type warheads are all fiber optic. At least that is the story on why fiber-optic caps are not available to the blasting industry....too precise of timing and too easy to use to make nukes....
1. When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.
...Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has recently funded studies into time travel and large capacity space tugs. When asked why, he reportedly cackled maniacally and said something about "Damn the penguins. Damn them all!"
Got mead?
no, you measure to what degree (what percentage have reach their common angle, what percentage did not) the particles were aligned.. not the direction. This shows the strength.
pm
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
I solved this Earth defense thing last year and no one thanked me...
& cid=4709365old thread
http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=45499
--
{ Pillar candles great for when the power fails and you cant see the keyboard..
I'm no scientist, but I think the B612 project is almost on the right track. IMHO the easier way to stop asteroids is to move space rocks to improvise some very dense, rock barriers and not to count on a rendevous with the killer asteroid itself.
The DaVinci code guy wrote a book about this.
"Slashdot: where racism against Indians is OK..." /. look bad is good.
Of course, I noticed your sig previously; I am curious. (I know, "don't reply to sigs!") I can think of several ways to interpret it.
(i) (whine) People in the US are picking on India (since jobs are going there).
(ii) (gloat) Microsoft TCO anti-linux ads actually help Linux. Anti-India posts recognize that India is a serious player in the IT world.
(iii) (native American) Is this a tribal issue? Gambling?
(iv) (troll)
(v) (M$) Anything that makes
So, which is it?
No, because then his obsession with "god" would be proven wrong. Either way fuck john kerry.
SOOOO
the plan to stop an extinction class asteroid is:
TO FREEZE THE OCEANS and hope probability is on our side
When i make pudding it seems to have a nice crater-like imprint before i dip my spoon in it and really give it one.
Am I the only one who didn't immediately think of Second Impact the disaster in Neon Genesis Evangelion that destroyed Antarctica and killed half the worlds population. But of course the 'impact' story was a fictional explanation for an event in a fictional anime ... fiction within fiction .. is that like a double negative for reality. Must be, the proof is right there under the ice ... heh heh.
Bitter and proud of it.
In an article like this, you'd expect to see some cool pics...The link has no pics! Whoever posted this article...you suck big time!!!
If this increases and keeps up or intensifies, would this be the cosmic equivalent of Earth "getting her ass kicked"?
Are the meteors heading for the cosmic "pole position"?
Right in the cossix/tail bone? (I am imagining an axe or sledge hammer slamming right up and through the tail structure. This is a kind of unsettling thought, Earth cracking her ass up.)
Just how much more can she take?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
So the initial location of the firey cataclysm that wipeout of the dominate species on Earth is now frozen over. Hmm... so when someone stipulates Hell freezing over first, does that mean we can now point out the Antartic Circle and tell them they're late?
If the world's undersea volcanos went active .
.
.
.
.
....
for a "short" while near the poles and they
"completely" melted we would see hundreds of feet
rise in sea levels world wide
According to bible it rained for forty days and
forty nights and I am not sure how long it took
to "drain off"
My guess would be as it rained in some parts,
it fell as snow in others , and the volcanic
activity subsided
That is a scientific guess at a situation that
may or may not have happened
For that much water to fall as precipitation
would take an "insane" amount of time and
evaporation
Even monsoon rains cannot dump that amount of
water, I think the volcanos we now know
are under antarctica and the arctic could
have released enuff water to flood everything to and elevation of 400 - 500 ft above sea level
maybe a little higher
Just my 2 cents
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Come on, 65 milliyears is about 24 days. We'd have heard of it in the news.
Everyone remain calm. I spent countless hours in arcades preparing for such an impact. That's the real reason the dinosaurs died: they didn't have arcades.
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
This ain't news.. We've all seen The Thing..
Quick! Somebody get this man some Ice-9!
There's more to it than that, you also have to remember that it will be slower than light in a vacuum because there is a big, thick piece of U-238 around it.
The solution to this would be to trigger the explosive spheres from all the warheads with one electronics package.
I am sorry but as interesting as the possibility of relatively recent asteroid stricks in the Antarctic is: ...
How can one pay much attention to this particular "scientist" if he goes around saying that a few asteroid strikes that would be the equivalent of your car getting bumped by an openning door in a parking lot could
change the Earth's magnetic polarity?
The liquid iron core of the earth is much larger in two dimensions than all of Antarctica, has the third dimension,
and is shielded by at least as much of the earth's crust and inner mantle as its radius.
I could see that such an impact might have touched off many earthquakes elsewhere because of a "Bell Ringing" effect of seismic waves but anyone ever heard of what we call EarthQuakes (really just crust quakes) having any effect on the "inner-life" of the planet?
Bah Humbug!