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Antarctic Craters Reveal Asteroid Strike

Posted by michael on from the rock-of-ages dept.

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."

2 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. Interception by panurge · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Perhaps this really is the time for NASA, the ESA, and Russia to pool their efforts to find a way of detecting, intercepting and deflecting comets and wandering asteroids that present a threat. The European Quijote Project seems to be a step in the right direction(as well as having a very witty title).

    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.
  2. You really are missing something...... by TheAxeMaster · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.