Hole in Asteroid Belt Reveals Extinction Asteroid

eldavojohn writes "Further evidence for the asteroid mass extinction theory has been discovered as a break in the main asteroid belt of our solar system. From the article, "A joint U.S.-Czech team from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and Charles University in Prague suggests that the parent object of asteroid (298) Baptistina disrupted when it was hit by another large asteroid, creating numerous large fragments that would later create the Chicxulub crater on the Yucatan Peninsula as well as the prominent Tycho crater found on the Moon.""

Comments

hmm

[thatskinnyguy]

This article was written on the basis of a suggestion? Please get back to me when you have facts. They may be onto something.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a fact that something happened.. probably.

Re:hmm

[thatskinnyguy]

Obviously. But the jury is still out as to how.

Re:hmm

[skoaldipper]

Timing is everything, which is the main thrust of this article I gather, linking that event to interesting moon and earth geological formations during the same epoch.

But, if Chicxulub was the 8 ball, and Baptistina the combo shot, I was left wondering at the end of my reading, what was the cue ball, and where was the pool stick? Of more concern, when does the best 2 out of 3 match take place?

Re:hmm

[Hal_Porter]

If it's not true then why aren't we up to our asses in velociraptors?

Re:hmm

[Cytlid]

You beat me to the pool analogy punch.

  I was going to say, "Einstein was right, God doesn't play dice. He plays pool. Third planet, corner pocket!"

Re:hmm

[bhsurfer]

Perhaps an airplane full of "missing" nukes hit it.

Re:hmm

[achilles777033]

We are. You might recognize them better using the term 'Pigeon' however. Or so one theory goes :P

Alternative theories???

[click2005]

a break in the main asteroid belt of our solar system

The Flying Spaghetti Monster was making meatballs gets my vote.

Re:Alternative theories???

[rat10177sd]

Nah, it's the Vogons putting in that Hyperspace freeway. they'll be here after they finish that part of the job.

"Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal." - Zaphod Beeblebrox in "Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy"

Cue The Godfather violin music

[nizo]

At approximately 170 kilometers in diameter and having characteristics similar to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, the Baptistina parent body resided in the innermost region of the asteroid belt when it was hit by another asteroid estimated to be 60 kilometers in diameter. This catastrophic impact produced what is now known as the Baptistina asteroid family, a cluster of asteroid fragments with similar orbits.

Ok lets all hope we don't get another visit from the hit men of our solar system, the Baptistina family.

Re:Cue The Godfather violin music

[Junior J. Junior III]

Say, that's a real nice planet you got there. It'd be a shame if something were to happen to it...

Re:Cue The Godfather violin music

[hywel_ap_ieuan]

Ok lets all hope we don't get another visit from the hit men of our solar system, the Baptistina family.

If anyone has the right contacts, I think an effort should be made to get one of the Baptistina objects named "Joey Bananas" or "Paulie Walnuts". Maybe some sub-group of the family could be christened the Soprano swarm.

Ach..

[Anonymous Coward]

Hoo there, Kingfish... somebody done stole the asteroid.

How to get mainstream coverage

[paleo2002]

If you want your obscure research paper to receive mainstream media coverage and net you loads of grant money, be sure to link your work to one or more of the following "hot topics":

meteor impact

dinosaurs

mass extinction

global warming

DNA

obesity

energy efficient cars

OK, fine. There's a gap in the asteroid belt indicating that several large objects were knocked loose some time in the past few million years. And, yes, those objects will be most likely to fall towards the Sun and insect the orbits of the inner planets. That doesn't mean you've found where the infamous dinosaur-killing meteor came from. That's pure speculation! That gap could just as easily been left by the meteor that caused the P/Tr extinction or by a meteor that hit Venus.

Re:How to get mainstream coverage

[blahdeblah2000]

Strange but nobody seems to be researching the theory that the technologically advanced Dinosaurs became extinct (well apart from the ones still alive and in hiding) after repeated attempts to alter their DNA lead to mass obesity which lead to them using unefficient cars which lead to global warming which roasted their cold blooded insides.

This meteor stuff is nonsense.

Re:How to get mainstream coverage

[Anonymous Coward]

The mass extinction (not by a meteor impact) of energy efficient cars that fight global warming won't work for the poor folks whose DNA causes their dinosaur-like obesity.

Now get my goddamn research grant here RIGHT NOW dammit!

-mcgrew

Re:How to get mainstream coverage

[Abcd1234]

If you want your obscure research paper to receive mainstream media coverage and net you loads of grant money,

Yeah, because, as we all know, organizations dole out grant money based solely on the headlines they see scrolling by on the CNN ticker...

Re:How to get mainstream coverage

[RenderSeven]

You're absolutely right. They dole out grant money based on what they *want* to see scrolling by the CNN ticker.

Re:How to get mainstream coverage

[Kupek]

You said, emphasis mine,

If you want your obscure research paper to receive mainstream media coverage and net you loads of grant money, be sure to link your work to one or more of the following "hot topics":

From the physorg write up,

The article, "An asteroid breakup 160 Myr ago as the probable source of the K/T impactor," was published in the Sept. 6 issue of Nature.

If you don't understand why this juxtaposition is funny, then you're not qualified to make fun of anyone's scientific research.

Re:How to get mainstream coverage

[Puppet Master]

... "hot topics": meteor impact, dinosaurs, mass extinction, global warming, DNA, obesity, energy efficient cars...

Ok, I'm doing a study on how the dinosaurs became extinct after a meteor impacted on our obese planet causing global warming and DNA inconsistencies...

Where's my grant money ? :)

I for one welcome our asteroid overlords!

[Anonymous Coward]

No really, I do.

Re:I for one welcome our asteroid overlords!

[X0563511]

I for one welcome our man-made meme-parrot killing super-virus!

No crap

[gerf]

Let's get some logic here:

1. There are more inter-system collisions than we realize. Example: Schoemaker-Levi

2. The Sun is bigger than Earth, and therefore would probably get hit 1000% (or more) more often. Example: eclipses show this quite easily

2.a Corollary: The Sun is the center of the Solar System, not Earth. Example: Copernicus

3. The big Yucatan collision happened millions of years ago, and since then things have moved a bit. We can't predict movement 10 years from now, much less 160 Million. Example: We still use Pork-Chop plots at NASA

4. They predict an impact 160 million years ago, 95 million years off the mark. Example: Dino fossils are as new as 65 million.

Overall, this isn't the most reliable of links and summaries in recent /. history. At least I haven't seen any Global Warming scarey articles in a while. Maybe the Firehose is working afterall?

Re:No crap

[thatskinnyguy]

At least I haven't seen any Global Warming scarey articles in a while. I really wish we had a "fearmonger" tag for those.

Re:No crap

[Arabani]

4. They predict an impact 160 million years ago, 95 million years off the mark. Example: Dino fossils are as new as 65 million. They believe that the BREAKUP occurred 160 million years ago, not whatever wiped out the dinosaurs. It takes time for things to move from the asteroid belt to the Earth, you know.

Re:No crap

[Anonymous Coward]

2. The Sun is bigger than Earth, and therefore would probably get hit 1000% (or more) more often. Example: eclipses show this quite easily It would be extraordinarily hard for any object to hit the Sun. Only if an object was heading directly for the Sun as it entered the Solar System gravity well or if it originally had an extremely eccentric orbit would it be able to hit the Sun. This point may not be obvious to those who haven't studied physics, but the Solar System is a gravity well. If your goal is to hit the Sun (i.e. to touch the atmosphere where you will be aerodynamically decelerated/toasted), then you need to give up a lot of energy. Probes like MESSENGER that want to go into orbit around Mercury need to use more fuel than they would to escape the Solar System entirely.

From your point of view as a comet or other object in elliptical orbit around the Sun, if you wanted to actually collide with the Sun you would need to strike an object such that it sent you into an elliptical orbit with such a high eccentricity that your orbit passed through the atmosphere of the Sun. The probability of that happening is extremely remote. The probability of sending a collided object through the orbits of any of the planets is not.

For objects that are not orbiting the Sun when they are approaching (and can't be captured without a collision with a third body), your direction of approach has to be so finely positioned that those mythical sniper shots at 1 mile or more look trivial. In no case will the Sun's gravity make a collision more probable (or in the other case).

Re:No crap

[barakn]

Eclipses show this quite easily? What the heck is that supposed to mean? And pork chop plots show how much energy it will take for a spacecraft to escape Earth's gravity, place it on a course to another object, and capture it into orbit upon arrival as a function of different launch and arrival dates. They are most definitely not, as you seem to imply, some sort of error estimate for orbital trajectories. It's sad that you've decided to try to cast aspersions on research done by the Southwest Research Institute, as it is highly regarded in the field, and you don't seem to know what you're talking about.

Re:No crap

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>We can't predict movement 10 years from now

NASA does it all the time for deep space probes, Halley's Comet returns are predicted many orbits in advance, and in general celestial mechanics is one of the most exact predictive disciplines. Even tiny deviations, such as those of Mercury's orbit (56 arc seconds per year!), are considered grounds for revising theories of gravity.

Re:No crap

[Anonymous Coward]

1. There are more inter-system collisions than we realize. Example: Schoemaker-Levi

Data is not the plural form of anecdote.

Re:No crap

[Markspark]

yeah, cause we all know that global warming is a myth started be commies and liberals, now where the hell are my nukes? the burning of fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which leads to more solar radiation being absorbed in our atmosphere, leading to a warmer climate.. which in turn ups the amount of water in the atmosphere, which incidentally also is a greenhouse gas. positive feedback loop ftw!

Re:No crap

[EsbenMoseHansen]

4. They predict an impact 160 million years ago, 95 million years off the mark. Example: Dino fossils are as new as 65 million.

I'm no expert, but there are (at least) 2 big craters on the earth, each roughly corresponding to a big die-off. I think they are talking about the earlier one, while the later one is the dinodeath one.

Re:No crap

[1u3hr]

2. The Sun is bigger than Earth, and therefore would probably get hit 1000% (or more) more often. Example: eclipses show this quite easily

WTF does an eclipse show? I hope you're not talking about sunspots, which have nothing to do with asteroids. 4. They predict an impact 160 million years ago, 95 million years off the mark.

RTFA. There was a series of impacts over millenia, Yucatan being the biggest, but not the first. Many of the earth grazers we see now may have originated in the same event.

At least I haven't seen any Global Warming scarey articles in a while. Maybe the Firehose is working afterall?

It's not news when it's a known fact. Seeing as how you willfully misinterpreted this article, I'm not surprsed you remain confused about that too.

Re:No crap

[rucs_hack]

For a bit of fun when I was running my solar system model a while back I tried to hit Sol with an asteroid. Its rather tricky, but it can be done if the velocity is low enough and you contrive an orbit. It's virtually impossible, at least I never managed it, to slingshot an object around one of the inner planets and hit the sun.

Yes, yes, I'm a geek, I have no life, I really spent days doing this [/sob]

There's the other thing though, define 'impact'. Most comets are icy, many asteroids are ice and shale. Put those close to the sun and you get vapour, and no more comet/asteroid. That would be an impact. my software can't do such things, but I probably got a few impacts of this type.

Incidentally altering the mass of the sun up to the Chandrasekhar limit doesn't mean any of the planets collapse into the sun, they all get ejected. Neptune gets into an orbit so elliptical and fast that I believe it would be stripped to whatever is at its core before it was finally ejected.

Re:No crap

[loganrapp]

It's not commies and liberals. It's scientists needing grants.

Re:No crap

[somersault]

While I've heard enough arguments on both sides as to not be sure any more (the best argument I've heard is about global warming on other planets, which shows that we're not really having as much of an effect as we thing we are), it seems that a lot of people just try and dismiss the whole thing because they want to continue guzzling gas and polluting the planet. Personally I love driving and all the modern benefits we receive because of our polluting ways, but cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions and our use of oil is a worthwhile cause anyway, unless you just don't give a shit about our descendants.

Re:No crap

[Trailwalker]

The probability of that happening is extremely remote.

Only in terms of human reference; i.e., in our lifetimes.

In the time scale of the universe, the probability of an event approaches 100%.

Re:No crap

[dintech]

now where the hell are my nukes?

On a 3 hour trip across the country on a B-52?

Re:No crap

[SunTzuWarmaster]

Although things take some time to move across the solar system, I believe that 65 million years may be an exaggeration, especially when you consider the acceleration that gravity causes.

Re:No crap

[GTMoogle]

To continue another thread's pool analogy, it probably wasn't a straight shot, but banked of the edges for a while.

In the grand scheme of things the solar system is pretty sparse. Even large, slow-moving objects are pretty unlikely to hit anything on a random traversal, but will often end up in strange orbits.

Re:No crap

[Goaway]

You have just accused an entire field of science of being nothing but liars.

Do you have the kind of evidence needed to back up a claim like that?

Re:No crap

[Goaway]

Those are usually tiny preturbations of 2-body problems. Those are easy. 3-body problems and up, that's another story entirely. They can be extremely sensitive to initial conditions.

Re:No crap

[K. S. Kyosuke]

"We can't predict movement 10 years from now, much less 160 Million. Example: We still use Pork-Chop plots at NASA"

Yes, an that's why the Digital Orrery of Sussman et al. didn't work. They made up all the research results. (You realize I'm being sarcastic, don't you?)

Re:No crap

[thefuz]

This is exactly the kind of unadulterated smack-down I look forward to stumbling upon every morning. Thank you, oh erudite Anonymous Coward.

Re:No crap

[beckerist]

It's not scientists. It's politicians. MY question: how do we know that it isn't natural and cyclical? All the evidence certainly points to it...

Back to the asteroid: I have a hard time believing that, in the hundreds of millions of years that those asteroids have been stirring around the sun since "the one" broke off and smacked into us, the belt itself didn't regain gravitational stability. An analogy: take a gigantic bowl of unbaked cookie dough. NOW take a gigantic scoop out of it from the side of the bowl and STIRRRR (for a few hundred million years.) Can you still see the location where the chunk was removed?

Now let's perform this same experiment with only a single light source, using ALL physics and from the perspective of a grain of sugar about halfway between the light source (in the middle of the bowl) and the chunk...

...I don't buy it, at least not yet.

Re:No crap

[OverlordsShadow]

The funny thing is that now that you've mentioned that you haven't noticed any Global Warming articles this one has turned towards that topic for at least a good few post.... We will never win. It's amazing how offtopic a whole discussion can go and people still get modded +55 interesting or informative or insightful (which all seem pretty much the same rating to me, as what is informative can be at the same time interesting and visa versa). Go Slashdot FTW

Re:No crap

[Ambitwistor]

MY question: how do we know that it isn't natural and cyclical? All the evidence certainly points to it... Really? "All" evidence? What is this evidence? It certainly contradicts the evidence summarized here.

There just isn't any evidence from past climate which indicates that a natural warming "cycle" like the one we're experiencing is due right now (see, e.g., here).

As for natural, non-cyclical warming, that's a harder issue. The short answer is that observations of both natural (solar effects, volcanoes, etc.) and human (greenhouse gases, atmospheric aerosols, etc.) sources of warming/cooling indicate that natural sources of warming can explain many warming events in the past, but strongly fail to account for the magnitude, timing, and rate of the warming trend over the last 30-40 years. On the other hand, inclusion of human sources can explain the observed warming pretty well. Both natural and human sources of climate change are necessary to explain observed trends, but natural sources alone appear unable to account for the recent warming that people are worried about.

You can read the above links for more information.

I have a hard time believing that, in the hundreds of millions of years that those asteroids have been stirring around the sun since "the one" broke off and smacked into us, the belt itself didn't regain gravitational stability. I don't know what you mean by "gravitational stability". But as for your overall claim, you can actually run N-body simulations of asteroid belt dynamics and find that yes, the "hole" can indeed stick around for hundreds of millions of years. That is, in fact, what the authors of this study did. Now, you could argue that the simulations are incomplete in some way (and no doubt someone will), but you can't simply dismiss the evidence with a facile analogy to cookie dough.

Re:No crap

[Stefanwulf]

WTF does an eclipse show?

Well, if you start with a known distance between yourself and the sun and then wait for an object of known size (an asteroid, the moon, etc) to pass between you and it at another known distance, recording the exact percent of the sun which is occluded by the object, you should be able to use those figures to determine the sun's size.

Thus using an eclipse to show that the sun is bigger than the earth, albeit in a way that's exceedingly round-about and unnecessary.

Re:No crap

[d34thm0nk3y]

Data is not the plural form of anecdote.

Yes it pretty much is.

Of course, anecdote is not the plural of anecdote...

Re:No crap

[Cornelius the Great]

Nice straw man. When did he mention an entire field of science?

Scientists are people too. Contrary to popular belief, they're not infallible and can (and often do) have egos and axes to grind- not to mention greed. I'm not saying they're all selfish people merely acting in their own best interests rather than the benefit of mankind; many humble researchers obviously have had noble achievements. But don't put every expert on a pedestal because they're "scientists".

Needless to say, grad school was certainly a rude awakening for me.

Re:No crap

[Ambitwistor]

the best argument I've heard is about global warming on other planets, which shows that we're not really having as much of an effect as we thing we are That's actually one of the worst arguments against global warming, considering the vast differences between different planetary climates and the very small amount of data we have on them. The only common factor among all planets is the Sun, and solar effects do a rather poor job in explaining the observed temperature trends on any of the planets, let alone all of them. (Well, it does ok for Earth's temperature trends at some periods in the past, but not recently.) Furthermore, there are much more direct links to non-solar causes of climate change on other planets. You have to look at individual cases to see what's going on, e.g., albedo changes on Mars, convection changes on Jupiter, perihelion on Pluto, etc. See Phil Plait's overview. I can dig up more links/references if you like, both on planetary climate trends and on solar influences.

We have vastly more data about Earth climate and that is where you should look for good arguments for or against global warming. Other planets tell us very little about Earth climate.

Re:No crap

[Anonymous Coward]

science is the new dogma. all the religion bashers here are more than willing to do the goosestep the second that science is mentioned as the source of a study. there is no questioning science without being cast out as a luddite or some kind of uppity christian.
 
yes sir, the new messiah wears a lab coat and carries a test tube.
 
[/sarcasm]
 
in all seriousness, i'm glad you called this guy out. too bad more mods didn't waste their points before they questioned such a gross overstatement and instead just blindly modded the grand parent up as insightful and the ever-suspicious underrated mod.

Re:No crap

[AeroIllini]

Right, because a tiny little rounding error in the 195th decimal place, integrated out over 95 million years, couldn't possibly introduce an error big enough to miss Earth entirely.

Seriously, there's no way we could ever possibly calculate those kinds of orbits with that kind of accuracy over a time span of 160 million years with current technologies. The solar system as a macroscopic gravitational system, and asteroids in particular, are a fairly chaotic system. There's a reason spacecraft carry trajectory correction thrusters.

There is a ridiculous amount of speculation going on here.

Re:No crap

[Anonymous Coward]

And I really wish there was "head-in-the-sand" (or perhaps "head-up-your-ass-what-a-wonderful-view" tag) tag for folks like you and flat-earth believers.

Re:No crap

[idji]

Collisions on a solar level simply don't happen. Taking this up to a galatic level - if 2 galaxies collide, they will pass through each other without any star hitting any other star. The centre of our galaxy has an insane high density of stars, but their are only collisions between stars on the order of 10's or 100's of millions of years.

Re:No crap

[hidave]

A friend recently returned from an Alaskan cruise. He among others admired the glaciers. He reported that a tour guide said those glaciers are retreating (as from global warming). He also pointed out they had been retreating since being discovered in 1770. This, among other GW/AGW comments, does not belong on this thread, but I just heard the story and finally found a spot for it. Sorry...

Re:No crap

[Ambitwistor]

He reported that a tour guide said those glaciers are retreating (as from global warming). He also pointed out they had been retreating since being discovered in 1770. That's not a terribly surprising observation. After all, the gross temperature trend over the last few centuries has been one of gradual warming: it's not just a recent phenomenon. What people are worried about with respect to "global warming" is a recent acceleration of the rate of warming.

Re:No crap

[VENONA]

"mythical sniper shots at 1 mile"

No myth. You can't do this with a 30-06 or 7.62mm NATO round, but .50 BMG is a different story. 2,250 meters (7381 ft, 1 mi = 5280 ft) was done in Vietnam, by Marine GySgt Carlos Hathcock. .50 MBG, fired from an M2 w/ Unertl scope.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Hathcock

I could personally ring your bell at 1000 meters (better than half a mile) with a 7.62 NATO round, using a rifle that's just a few feet along the hall. I did the equivalent (on a range) a couple of weeks ago. I'm fully aware of the differences between a range and the real thing. I'm a vet.

Being an intellectual is fine, but it's best tempered with some real-world experience. It might prevent you from being correct about some things (it really is difficult to fire something into the sun) and erroneously expanding that into opinions about things you clearly know nothing about. Such as carrying a rifle, and meaning to use it.

Read that link above, and maybe you'll understand why your comment got my vet ass in the air. I suspect that my ass was in the mud while yours was in grammar school.

Re:No crap

[VENONA]

"mythical sniper shots"
I forgot to call you a dick-head. Sorry about that.

Re:No crap

[hidave]

check out this site http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/GlobWarmTest/start.html

Re:No crap

[Ambitwistor]

A quiz full of misleading and false claims is supposed to be convincing?

But good job on getting your science from Googling for Geocraft websites, there.

wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

an alignment of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune disrupted the gravity and sent many asteroids towards the earth/moon. This alignment (160 million years ago) is consistent with the dinosaur extinction and the increased asteroid activity on the moon (which has no atmosphere, so evidence doesn't get lost).

I've Been Foiled!

[eldavojohn]

... then make a Slashdot account and submit it there. You caught me. Oh how you've ruined years of careful plotting and planning. I am not eldavojohn, I am actually a Czech researcher named Dr. David Vokrouhlicky. I have slowly been posting careful karma whoring posts and submitting story after story all in the name of eventually publishing my research and getting it on the front page of Slashdot.

Yes, it was a long arduous endeavor. Gaining people's trust, making foes of others. It was an ingenious plan to boost the popularity and public acceptance of my paper ... and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids!

Well, the gig is up, that hole was actually created by Rumfoord and his dog, Kazak. Ohhh, no, I've wasted my life! Who would have thought such a ridiculously elaborate and circuitous plan to tilt the scientific world towards accepting my theories based on computer models could have been foiled by an internet user named Cheezymadman!?

Re:I've Been Foiled!

[Eevee1]

Herr Doktor, don't forget your lowly assistant, Igor Krumm! Your paper shall receive the glory that it deserves, Herr Doktor! Just you wait! Igor awaaaaaaaaaay!

Hole

[Anonymous Coward]

Even a hole that big doesn't scare me as much as goatse's.

fsm

[SolusSD]

An asteroid didn't kill the dinosaurs!! They died at the hand of His noodley appendage! And the asteroids are meatballs.

Hate to be a dick but...

[thatskinnyguy]

Sun and intersect the orbits of the inner planets There. Now I can sleep better.

Re:Hate to be a dick but...

[Max Littlemore]

Sun and intersect the orbits of the inner planets

There. Now I can sleep better.

I thought he meant that asteriods buzz around planets like flies.

Re:Hate to be a dick but...

[thatskinnyguy]

Lets use our heads now. Flys buzz around poop and dinosaurs were the only ones in the solar system at the time making poop. So therefore, more fly-like asteroids hit Earth than any other planet. The moon just ran interference.

Hole in the asteroid belt??

[RuBLed]

I RTFA cause I'm curious about this hole but... Why is the title like that? Did the thousands of big asteriods created by the collision of these two produced a hole?

A title "Baptistina family killed the dinosaurs" would be more precise...

Re:Hole in the asteroid belt??

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't "the Baptistina family made a hit on the dinos" sound like some kind of Mafioso thing? What, the giant reptiles hadn't paid their protection money?

That's all? Earth and Moon?

[haakondahl]

It didn't create sunspots and the Great Red Spot? I think these folks are not imaginative enough.

Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[abbamouse]

I wonder if this means that our current strategy of tracking asteroids to see if they will impact Earth is the wrong one. Perhaps no asteroids "naturally" hit Earth on their present trajectories. If it takes a collision within the asteroid belt to throw out material that impacts Earth, maybe we should be trying to track the movements of large asteroids to see if they will intersect EACH OTHER rather than Earth.

I may be misunderstanding the data, and I would never change policy based on a single study, but this suggests that a more sophisticated approach is needed to detect potential impactors.

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[bidule]

Yes, of course! Because once quasi-collision changes an asteroid orbit, we only have a few million years left before it gets within lunar orbit!

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[abbamouse]

Do we know this? I'm no astronomer, so I don't. Just how much can an orbit be altered by a collision? (Or at least, one that doesn't pulverize both objects).

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[Trogre]

So what you're saying is - God might be going for a trick shot?

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[ceoyoyo]

The idea is that these collisions increase the number of asteroids that cross our orbit and can therefore have a chance of hitting us. It takes a while though. We don't really care about something that might hit us 160 million years from now. We care about something that might hit us say, this century. So we look at the ones that are already whizzing around in our neighborhood.

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just how much can an orbit be altered by a collision?"

It depends. I would think that if multiple objects that are already in 'stable' orbits in the belt and there was a collision, it wouldn't be that much of a problem. Orbits are pretty much defined via mass/distance. Collisions now probably happen often, given the number of objects. Any very eccentric orbits will have more of a chance to hit another object as they have more of a tendency to cross other object's orbit. After all these billions of years, orbits should have matured to more stable and collisions should happen less. AND since the orbits are more stable, the rocks will sort by mass. The 'smaller' will be closer to the sun and larger further away. (given that the orbits with higher eccentricities smash into things and get smaller)

I think that a rogue object would have a better chance to cause a collision for a large object to have its orbit changed.

The odds are very good that in my lifetime we will have some extraterrestrial event that will shake up our understanding again. (large impact, supernova, aliens, who knows?)

Anyway....

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[Photonic Shadow]

I've actually done astronomy, and have the master's thesis to prove it.

So bow down amateur posers, and pay head to the voice of truth!

Here's the scoop. Heating from solar radiation when an astroid is absorbed by the 'side' of the astroid facing the Sun. As the astroid rotates that 'side' away from the Sun IR is radiated away from the astroid. This absorption, and radiation of Solar energy is in the form of photons. Over a long period of time the cumulative effect of this thermal thrusting can alter an astroids orbit. This along with gravitational perturbations cause impacts of astroids within the belt to collide, fragment, and eventually to have their orbits altered to such a degree as to place some of these objects on an intercept trajectory with the Earth-Moon system.

What I believe that the authors are alluding to is that Earth-Moon impactors undergo a lengthy process. If it can be shown that the K-T event was the result of an astroid from the astroid belt being dislodged, and if further corroborating evidence can be discovered then a lot of the Chicken Little reports, shows, etc. will eventually calm down. If Earth-Moon impactors are by and large, if not almost totally from such an event as is described in tfa then the odds of the Earth-Moon system encountering an impactor from a rouge orbit, or trajectory will be very much lessened.

PS

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[mcrbids]

Do we know this? I'm no astronomer, so I don't. Just how much can an orbit be altered by a collision? (Or at least, one that doesn't pulverize both objects).

I'm no astronomer either, but we can run some numbers found a la Google and give ourselves some reasonable estimates. Anybody who IS an astronomer is free to correct my numbers, but my intention is merely a "back of the napkin" class estimate.

How fast does an asteroid travel? The average speed of an asteroid is 25km/second. Since I'm am American, to me that's about 15 miles per SECOND.

Earth is 7,926 Miles across. For these figures I'll use 8,000 miles.

Asteroids are somewhere between 1.8 and 4.5 AU from the sun. The earth is 1 AU from the son. Since both orbit the sun, and the average distance of earth from the sun is 0 AU (orbit being roughly circular) let's say that the average distance of an asteroid from Earth is about 2.2 AU. Since earth is 1 AU and that is 93 Million miles, we'll say that the average asteroid is about 93 million * 2.2 miles from the Earth. That's 204.6 million miles from the Earth.

So let's assume that two rocks hit. What are the odds that the asteroid goes out and whacks the Earth, straight away? Well, we'd end up with a 204.6 MILLION MILE RADIUS on the inside of a very large sphere. Using the formula for calculating the surface of a sphere, we get 261,348,480,000,000,000 square miles of area that the asteroid could potentially hit. Compare that to the actual area of Earth to hit (a circle 2*pi*r) =~ 50,000 miles.

In short, you have a 50,000 in 261,348,480,000,000,000, or 1 in 5,226,969,600,000. (one in about 5 trillion)

These are very VERY VERY small odds, even if my back-of-the-napkin calculations are off by several orders of magnitude. Let's give you some idea just how BIG 5 trillion is. There have been about 1 billion seconds since Jan 1, 1972. To wait 1 trillion seconds is to wait about 30,000 years. If asteroids were to collide every SINGLE SECOND it would STILL take over 30,000 YEARS for one to hit the Earth directly.

Now, these figures are rough. They do not take into account orbital mechanics, etc. But even so, the numbers are very small (large as odds against?) indeed.

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[mattr]

No. As mentioned in TFA, the asteroid fragments are expected to have ridden on the "interplanetary superhighway" which though not described is a network of paths throughout the solar system that things like spaceships and apparently asteroids can ride on without requiring additional energy. So they got onto a gravitational path that brought them to the Earth. There seem to be a limited number of these paths so the risk is high not low. Anyway the superhighway was found by Martin Lo who used it on the Genesis Project. I think the satellite in halo orbit between the Earth and the Sun used it for a very fuel efficient journey IIRC. Besides, even if the IS didn't exist still you would have a 100km wide piece of rock going around the Sun and after a while it would get attracted to the gravity of the Earth. Hitting us the millionth orbit is as bad as doing it the first time, if we are around then.

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[mcrbids]

Cool. So let me turn the question around on you - when was the last known extinction-level event as a result of an asteroid or comet? Has it been over 30,000 years? Has it been over 300,000 years? or 3,000,000 years? Or even 30,000,000 years? (yes to all the above, if you were paying attention)

Perhaps the risk isn't as high as your "interplanetary superhighway" leads you to believe?

Based on emperical evidence, my napkin trumps your TFA.

Cheers! =)

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[Anonymous Coward]

>So bow down amateur posers, and pay head to the voice of truth!

I highly doubt that anyone here is going to give you a blowjob.

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[mattr]

No reason to be facetious. That was the quote from TFA and there is real science behind the superhighway or whatever you want to call the gravitational assist network found by Martin Lo for slow, low energy transfers.

I'm not screaming chicken little, though I think it is the kind of thing where you don't really know the risk until you spend the money to investigate. Like these guys did. Last week astronomers found a huge number of the nearby galaxies are all pointed the same way, who would have imagined that. So I am not afraid per se but it would not be irrational to be afraid given we know so little.

Anyway FYI the most recent extinction level event of which I am aware was 13 years ago. In March 1994 as you probably remember a train of 1-2 kilometer diameter fragments of Comet Shoemaker-Levy struck Jupiter. The biggest one according to this link was a 6 MILLION megaton blast, 600 times the world's arsenal it says. Luckily Jupiter must catch most of the maverick objects. You remember how Sandia National Laboratory modeled the blast in advance (correctly IIRC) using their nuclear weapons simulator? Just because the dinosaur killer was so long ago and the crater is so big you don't see it from the ground doesn't mean these things are old news. I submit that we ought to spend as much monitoring objects in the solar system that we spend on say, pop music.

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[Don853]

Ok, I'm a huge fan of back of the envelope math. But... the asteroid belt is more of a torus than a sphere, and likely the impacted asteroids would stay on about the same plane, so you wouldn't be concerned about the whole of the sphere of earth's orbit. Also, the cross sectional area of the earth is pi*r*r, not 2*pi*r, that's the circumference.. also, the collision won't send the asteroid on a one-way path into the inner solar system, it'll put it an elliptical orbit, so it'll pass in or out of the earth's orbit every few years. That is, if it alters it enough to get that far into the inner solar system. Regardless, the answer is the same - the chances are small but non-zero.

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[ChrisA90278]

Yes it's the collisions that will toss debris at us. But the time between the collision and the debris hitting us would be between millions of years or "only" a few centuries. What we need to care about is the debris from collisions that occurred long ago. But a collision would be very interesting to observe for other reasons but I'd gues they are very rare and one may not happen while humans live on Earth.

Re:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk?

[Photonic Shadow]

Thanks! I appreciate, and am relieved by your comment. Also, note that you might consider that some times folks engage in sarcasm in their posts on slashdot. PS

Fermi

[Harmonious Botch]

"when does the best 2 out of 3 match take place?"

Good question. We've only been observing the asteroid belt for a relatively short time ( on a solar scale ), so it may be that splattering the local neighborhood is a regular phenomenon.

It gives us one more variable in Fermi's paradox.

Re:Fermi

[Anonymous Coward]

Out atmosphere limits it....a little... there are craters all over the world. No doubt we'll be hit again, but when?

Re:Fermi

[Anonymous Coward]

Tuesday?

Re:Fermi

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, anything better than another round of updates from Microsoft.

The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

There is certainly a place for theories that propose that Tycho is an impact crater, and it's a very good thing that people are actually proposing simulations in an attempt to explain what we see. The idea that catastrophe plays an important role in our surroundings has increasingly become accepted. But, what do the astrophysical heretics say about Tycho? Only by listening to what they say can we play devil's advocate with this particular simulation ...

[...]

The astronomers' consensus today is that the streamers are the trails of material ejected from the crater into narrow paths over extraordinary distances. But the "rays", Juergens noted, have no discernible depth, while material exploding from a Tycho-sized crater "would at least occasionally fall more heavily in one place than in another and build up substantial formations. But no one has ever been able to point out such a ray 'deposit'".

The presence of the narrow rays over such long distances, according to Juergens, is "all-but-impossible to reconcile with ejection origins. Enormous velocities of ejection must be postulated to explain the lengths of the rays, yet the energetic processes responsible for such velocities must be imagined to be focused very precisely to account for the ribbon-thin appearance of the rays". In fact, this challenge has found no answer in more recent scientific exploration. No experimental explosion at any scale has ever produced anything comparable to the well-defined 1500-kilometer "rays" of Tycho.

Even more telling is the fact that the rays are punctuated with numerous small craters. An early explanation was that "some solid material was shot out with the jets and produced 'on-the-way' craters". But such narrow trajectories for secondary impactors are an absurdity under the mechanics of an explosion. And the total volume of ejected material needed to form the secondary craters along Tycho's rays, would amount to some 10,000 cubic kilometers - an amount of material entirely inconsistent with careful measurements indicating that practically all material excavated from Tycho's crater has been deposited in its rim. However, the ray elements, terminating on small craters, are the very markers that today's electrical theorists have cited repeatedly as definitive evidence of an electrical discharge path. As Wallace Thornhill has so often observed, such discharge streamers frequently terminate at a crater. In fact, this is exactly what Gene Shoemaker found when investigating the puzzles of Tycho--"...many small secondary craters, too small to be resolved by telescopes on earth, occur at the near end of each ray element."

When compared to an imagined sphere of the Moon's average radius, the surrounding highland region occupied by Tycho is more than 1200 meters above the "surface" of that sphere. The crater site appears to be at the summit, or very close to the summit, of terrain that trends downward in every direction away from the site for hundreds of kilometers. For the impact theory, this location can only be an accident. But for the electrical theorists, the elevation on which Tycho sits is not accidental. Lightning is attracted to the highest point on a surface. (That is, of course, the principle behind lightning arrestors placed on the pinnacles of tall buildings).

Though astronomers see Tycho's rays as material ejected from the focal point of an impact, a mere glance at this picture is sufficient to make clear that not all of the streamers radiate from a central point. Is this surprising? A mechanical impact has a single focal point and cannot explain these offset rays. Juergens noted that they "diverge from a common point, or common focus, located on or buried beneath the western rim of the crater." The electrical interpretation of Tycho sees the streamers as paths of electrons rushing across the lunar highlands to the highest point, where it launches into space to form the lightning "l

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[Nefarious Wheel]

Umm, hang on, offset rays can in theory be explained by impact. Consider whether the primary body that impacted the centre of Tycho was alone, or had friends -- I think a fractured body of smaller mass accompaning the main body, with an impact point slightly off-centre of the main body (still remaining within the Tycho crater) could explain a ray that has a non-concentric origin? A comparison of the size of the concentric-origin vs. the nonconcentric origin rays, plus any of the main crater's divergence from circularity would be telling. Has that been factored in?

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

We've actually witnessed collisions in space. And found evidence on earth for them. We've never seen any evidence for electrical arcs between heavenly bodies that would cause craters. So that at least implies that they are more rare, if they are possible. scientists discount interpretations of observations that are not supported by other observations. That is it. Only when an event cannot be explained by any existing model formed from previous observations, will they resort to wild guessing ( see string theory, multiple universe theory, etc).

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[gujo-odori]

Even without a second impactor, it's possible. Throw some rocks at angles into really viscous mud and check the splat patterns. Giant bolt of lightning in space? Suuuuuuure....

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

We've actually witnessed collisions in space. And found evidence on earth for them. We've never seen any evidence for electrical arcs between heavenly bodies that would cause craters.

This sounds a bit pseudo-skeptical to me. Are you aware that many of the images by the impactor in the Deep Impact mission clearly demonstrated numerous points of white-out? Check this out ...

http://deepimpact.umd.edu/gallery/wipeout.html

Either you believe everything that NASA interprets in its images as word of God, or there is the possibility that those white-outs are electrical arcs.

I've stated it many times before here on these forums -- because people around here tend to not realize it -- but it's worth repeating that Wallace Thornhill was able to predict nearly *all* of the results of the Deep Impact mission on the basis of space plasmas being electrical. In fact, he predicted that a pre-impact flash would be observed. And sure enough, there were two flashes at the time of impact. Nobody was predicting anything like that prior to the impact.

From day one, there have been issues with impact theory. As you may know, Meteor Crater was mined for years and the impacting body was never found within the crater. The Tunguska Crater has had the same problem.

But, the evidence is really quite significant by now that space plasmas can be electrical. In the lab, plasmas change in luminosity and resistance based upon their charge density according to three disjointed curves: the dark mode, the glow mode and the arc mode. If you ask me, the only thing preventing nature from doing the same thing are the mainstream astrophysicists themselves. Our laboratory experience should be relevant to what's happening in space.

Hannes Alfven postulated a theory that was later validated on how charge separation can occur in space (critical ionization velocity). Furthermore, it takes less than 1% of ionization within the lab for a gas to conduct electricity. Electric Universe Theory has nothing to do with exotic theoretical physics. All they're saying is that the plasma phenomenon we observe within the laboratory are relevant to our observations of space. That's it.

Only when an event cannot be explained by any existing model formed from previous observations, will they resort to wild guessing ( see string theory, multiple universe theory, etc).

If you decided to expose yourself to it -- something which few people actually do -- you would come to realize that there is a very legitimate debate to be had here. The problem is that people are satisfied with explaining away evidence which supports electrical space plasmas rather than considering the body of evidence as a whole that supports the notion. This is actually a perfect definition of pseudo-skepticism: applying skepticism in an unfair manner. This might be a legitimate procedure for interpreting observations if the mainstream theories were successfully predicting our observations. The thing is, they aren't. Don't you think that if the mainstream theories are so correct that we shouldn't be seeing so many surprises in our observations by now?

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

Giant bolt of lightning in space? Suuuuuuure....

A lightning bolt in space will seem a lot more probable once you observe NASA's impending explanation for their ongoing observations of Enceladus.

Let's be real though: Like most others here, I seriously doubt that you have ever looked into the evidence for electrical space plasmas. I'm betting that you don't even realize that laboratory plasmas are electrical. If you never actually consider something long enough to hear out the evidence for it, then how can you know how improbable it is? Do you know what pseudo-skepticism is?

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[barakn]

No experimental explosion at any scale has ever produced anything comparable to the well-defined 1500-kilometer "rays" of Tycho.

With a plastic tub, a marble, and a dollar's worth of white flour and cocoa powder one can quite easily create a replica of Tycho's rays. Even better examples are the man-made impact craters on the moon at the bottom of this page. One in particular, created by an Apollo 14 rocket stage, shows not only rays but also a central peak.

I also find this picture of the Sedan nuclear test quite telling. A nuclear explosion releases a large amount of energy in a small area much like an impact. Notice the arching columns of debris, each of which seems to have a unique shape and trajectory. It is quite easy to see how these would form rays as they collapse on the ground, and some seem to come from slightly off-center from the chaotic cloud of the explosion.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The problem is the electric universe stuff attracts cranks and crackpots. No astrophysicist believes that electrical effects are insignificant in the universe - they spend most of their time doing magnethydrodynamic investigation, for god's sake. But when some anti-relativity nut latches on, and some anti-quantum nut and all the other nuts, it drags credibility through the mud. Really, you're wasting your time listening to hangers-on and wannabees clustering around the electric universe web site.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that assuming electricity in space to behave like in a fluid (magnetohydrodynamics) is exactly what the mainstream is supposed to be getting all wrong.

Now the electricity guys are good, eh? Only those pesky anti-relativity nuts they attract. Relativity is so precious.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds to me like someone with a book to sell.

I'm still wondering if BP runs a chain of stealth electron filling stations across the galaxy. You know, the ones where only the richer planetesimals can afford to stop, load up with a massive excess of electrons and then go cruising the milky way looking for unsuspecting rube bodies to unload all those extra electrons on. It's sort of like an intergalactic version of cow tipping.

All the while they manage to keep their massive loads of electrons hidden from those pesky human astronomers and astrophysicists.

All we have to do is don our tin foil hats and embark on a voyage to capture one of those rich planetesimals and we can park it in a orbit around the sun. Then we let the rich nations of Earth place their orders for electricity. Then we rig up a giant tesla coil and we use it to transfer the electricity down to the Earth.

At least that's how it would work if we could get phone or radio service to work with all these pesky surplus electrons we're carrying around. Screw iPhone, we need ionPhones...

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[TemporalBeing]

There are so many assumptions being made to get to the point of creating such simulations that it's easy to forget that each assumption has its own history, and the entire simulation's legitimacy depends on the survival of each of these individual assumptions.

Very well stated. This is perhaps the best statement that explains and is the reason behind why I dislike some of the various sciences, and want them to state their assumptions up front in their papers, etc.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[kindbud]

Has any radio burst ever been detected from one of these electrical arcs? Does the electrical arc hypothesis account for shatter cones?

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

they spend most of their time doing magnethydrodynamic investigation, for god's sake

A lot of Slashdot forum regulars and even professional astrophysicists do not realize, BTW, that Hannes Alfven, who invented MHD, recused himself from the way it was being applied during his Nobel Physics Acceptance speech. He stated specifically:

I thought that the frozen-in concept was very good from a pedagogical point of view, and indeed it became very popular. In reality, however, it was not a good pedagogical concept but a dangerous 'pseudo-pedagogical concept'. By 'pseudo-pedagogical' I mean a concept which makes you believe that you understand a phenomenon whereas in reality you have drastically misunderstood it.

I realize that you mean well with your posting, but may I recommend that you try a little bit harder to understand what is being said before you actually decide that EU Theory is a magnet for crackpots? We're really just talking about the application of laboratory plasma physics to the interpretation of astrophysical observations. It's not even a very unusual idea. Also, the movement has grown a bit over the past few years. In fact, some of the people on our own forums and on the more private discussion lists have quite significant credentials, and there is an IEEE issue that just came out that presents several papers written about electrical plasmas, some of which are written by EU Theorists. One person has managed to create a formula based upon an aether theory that is compatible with EU Theory that precisely predicts the electron binding energy of every single element within the periodic table. Maybe you're comfortable with dismissing such things, but I personally do not see the mainstream astrophysicists accomplishing anything like that.

So, I would ask that before you try to convince people to avoid investigation of it, perhaps you should consider that we should allow people to develop proofs for EU Theory so that they can be compared against proofs for the Big Bang. After all, it makes sense that we wouldn't be able to compare the two until we've attempted to prove both, right? People around these parts have completely forgotten the important role that heretics play in science. We need discussions in science, even on the big questions, so that we can play devil's advocate with the theories that are being created within the mainstream.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

There's additional information here:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/0507 08smoking.htm

It's also worth noting that the impact generated two ejecta centers visible in this image:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/0507 19deepinterim.htm

I'm unable to find anything in any of my materials about radio bursting. But I did find more useful analysis of the double-flash. From http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/0507 07meaning.htm:

"What you see is something really surprising. First, there is a small flash, then there's a delay, then there's a big flash and the whole thing breaks loose".

How, then, will NASA respond? Will they wonder if anyone predicted such a thing? Or will they stay in their comfort zone--within the walls of prior ideology--and reach for the nearest fantasy? The "explanation" they initially offered is mathematically inconceivable. They proposed that the impactor moved through a deep layer of soft material before hitting hard material. But the delay would require the impactor to have penetrated something like a mile beneath the surface before causing the "serious" impact event. From such an answer you would think someone dreamt up a mile of fluff for a surface, never actually looking at the sharply-defined features of the nucleus. All of the features suggest a hard surface, and observations to this effect have already come in from the SWIFT satellite.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

You won't understand what the assumptions are until you read what the heretics are saying. Mainstream astrophysicists have unilaterally decided that their burden is nothing more than to prove the mainstream theories. Stating their assumptions would tend to reveal that their theories are based upon a lot more assumptions than people realize, which would tend to cast doubt on the very papers that are being published. This is why we absolutely need heretics in science.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

These are all good points, but I think the key to that sentence was the fact that the rays do not change in width over the course of 1500 kilometers. That is somewhat enigmatic. We see this sort of thing in space too: vortexes that are able to retain their shape over numerous light years. Although we can certainly postulate mechanical processes that could possibly explain this, it is not giving credit to what we know of electrodynamics to ignore that these are also the hallmarks of electrical activity.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

Sounds to me like someone with a book to sell.

The theorists themselves have no time for Slashdot. Many even wonder whether or not it is a waste of time for me to talk about this stuff here. I do it because I used to spend a lot of time on Slashdot as a computer engineer before I became aware of EU Theory, and so I realize that this is where most tech-oriented people hang out. If I help the theorists to sell books, that would be great. But, the real goal is to just raise awareness of what EU Theory is. Judging by the fact that people here have such negative opinions of EU Theory, I'm guessing that perhaps the people before me were not all that good at explaining themselves. You have to understand that there really is little tolerance for ideas of plasma-based cosmologies within the astrophysical institutions. You cannot go to school and major in "Plasma Cosmology". And even if you could, where would you do your research? Who would want to take you in so that you can disprove their own research? There are EU Theory advocates in prestigious organizations who are not capable of telling their bosses what they do in their free time for fear that they would lose their jobs.

For the record though, you should realize that EU Theory is nothing more than laboratory plasma physics applied to the interpretation of astrophysical observations. That is not an exactly unusual concept considering that we now know that plasma constitutes 99.999% of all matter within the universe. It actually makes a lot of sense that the universe's primary constituent might be responsible for our observations of the universe, right?

Where's the conspiracy?

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Ok, I think I understand where you are coming from let me summarize:

Some craters are obviously created by impacts with meteors, comments or any other solid body.

There are some unusual features to some craters that can not be explained by our current theory of solid body impacts

Electrical phenomenon could explain these features



Is this what we are talking about? Do you agree with these points?

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[barakn]

Either you believe everything that NASA interprets in its images as word of God, or there is the possibility that those white-outs are electrical arcs.

I took a look at the image you linked to. The "white-out" in the lower part of the image is casting a shadow on the surface beneath it (one part in fact looks like a cave) but also the white area itself is darkened in one area, suggesting that it is shadowed. The white area is thus not a source of light but is rather simply reflecting sun light. A more proper interpretation is that the white area in the lower part of the image is a small cliff composed of light colored material with darker material scattered on the surfaces above the cliff and below the cliff. The white area in the upper left part of the image is an isolated chunk of the lighter colored material. Next time avoid linking to images that don't support your arguments.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[TemporalBeing]

You won't understand what the assumptions are until you read what the heretics are saying. Mainstream astrophysicists have unilaterally decided that their burden is nothing more than to prove the mainstream theories. Stating their assumptions would tend to reveal that their theories are based upon a lot more assumptions than people realize, which would tend to cast doubt on the very papers that are being published. This is why we absolutely need heretics in science.

I'm not simply talking about astrophyics, but I think that would be the case with most of the various sciences.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

The "white-out" in the lower part of the image is casting a shadow on the surface beneath it (one part in fact looks like a cave) but also the white area itself is darkened in one area, suggesting that it is shadowed.

It is well established that electric arcing occurs between the two closest parts of any two surfaces. That's why lightning rods are generally effective at protecting buildings. In the case of the Moon, actually, the Tycho and Aristarchus craters just so happen to be two of the tallest features on the near side of the Moon. If the arcing theory is true, then we should expect that all of the "tallest" (perhaps closest is a better word) features of the Tempel 1 comet would be illuminated. That generally appears to be true, although it's not something that NASA really cares to look into so we lack the data to actually know for sure. This is unfortunately quite common -- that we could confirm or disqualify EU Theory if there was interest based on the data that already exists.

I do not actually see the black area inside of the white area you are referring to, but I do not find this to rule anything out even if it is true. It could just be a low area on the surface that did not experience any of the arc.

What you have to realize though is that this is just one small piece of a much larger body of evidence that supports the notion that comets are electrical phenomenon. You can observe the rest of the arguments within the document that follows. This is not an amateur attempt to explain comets. I've discussed this document on the Slashdot forums for close to a year now, and I've only found one potential problem with it that I could not resolve (related to the existence of water in the Levy-Shoemaker remnants) ...

http://www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pdf

Of particular note is the idea that solar wind protons might be combining with oxygen embedded within silicates, creating streams of OH coming off of the comets. This offers a very simple explanation for why NASA sees what it thinks is evidence for water in the jets, but not on the actual surface. I personally find the idea that comets are hard shells surrounding icy cores to be somewhat of a joke.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[barakn]

Ah, you didn't explain yourself very well, leading me to assume that you were saying the whiteouts were the electrical arcs themselves. By reading the pdf I understand that these white areas are patches that have been etched by electrical arcs. But elsewhere in the very same document it says that "Intermittent and wandering arcs erode the surface and burn it black, leaving the distinctive scarring patterns of electric discharges." How very convenient. No matter what color the feature is you will claim it is due to electrical arcs. Which is it, black or white, or why do you think you can have it both ways?

And as for the statement "this is not an amateur attempt to explain comets," I'd like to point out that the document you linked to was written by an an electrical engineer and a mythologist. Since the subject of the paper is outside the area of expertise of either author, it is by definition an amateur attempt.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

Ok, I think I understand where you are coming from let me summarize:

Some craters are obviously created by impacts with meteors, comments or any other solid body.

There are some unusual features to some craters that can not be explained by our current theory of solid body impacts

Electrical phenomenon could explain these features

Is this what we are talking about? Do you agree with these points?

Yeah, that's pretty close. Within certain filters, the rays that emanate from Aristarchus look like a Lichtenberg pattern -- which is the pattern that currents make when traveling through solids. The human eye can intuitively recognize this pattern as electrical. Compare these images of electrical Lichtenberg patterns ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Plasma-filament s.jpg
http://205.243.100.155/frames/lichtenbergs.html
http://205.243.100.155/photos/For_Sale/June04/3Inc hDisk/CenterLED1b.jpg
http://picasaweb.google.com/mgmirkin/LightningScar s/photo#5075225945259278338
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/image06/060 309lightning.jpg

With Aristarchus ...

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/image06/060 309aristarchus.jpg

With the supposedly enigmatic Martian spiders ...

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/0607 26spiders2.htm

Titan ...

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/0506 29titan-rilles.htm

With these (on Earth) ...

http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=-24.395158&lon=114. 997495&z=13.1&r=0&src=yh
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=-25.659683&lon=140. 387453&z=15.4&r=0&src=ggl
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=-25.655156&lon=140. 386295&z=18.2&r=0&src=ggl
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=-23.742312&lon=140. 982472&z=16.2&r=0&src=ggl
http://www.flashearth.com/?lat=-27.863467&lon=141. 872015&z=15.2&r=0&src=ggl

These images are not proof of anything, but we can certainly be excused for using them as motivation for further investigation.

But Electric Universe Theory is not just about using the senses. There is very good reason to believe that electricity can flow through space. It is now accepted within astrophysics that space is not a vacuum, but rather filled with charged particles called plasma. In fact, matter within the plasma state represents 99.999% of all visible matter in the universe, and a gas can become electrified within the laboratory such that it becomes a plasma with only 1% ionization. That's not a whole l

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

The whiteouts *are* the arcs.

What you need to realize is that there is information that the public is not aware of yet that corroborates the *fact* that the universe operates according to a plasma cosmology. Major developments are occurring right now with decoding ancient documents, and the level of agreement between all of the cultures of the world is so much that it is impossible that this can be by chance. For that reason, it makes *complete* sense that a comparative mythologist should be involved. In fact, one would expect that as you narrow in on the truth of the universe that all disciplines would begin to reveal evidence that supports your theory. Similarly, we should eventually expect to see formulas based upon our cosmology that explain the periodic table of elements, and geologic evidence that supports whatever cosmology is correct, etc etc etc. That mainstream astrophysicists don't believe that there is any information in ancient documents is their own fault. They're so arrogant as to believe that since the documents don't make sense within the context of their own cosmology that the documents must not contain any information. That's juvenile. The field of mythology has been in a state of crisis (just like mainstream astrophysics actually) for many years now, but this is changing very rapidly. The most interesting things happening in science are not always in the news.

If you have doubts, then read "God Star" by Dwardu Cardona. It was published in 2006, so people can be forgiven for not having heard of it yet. It's a paradigm-shifting book.

Oh, and by the way, Dave Talbott (the mythologist you reference) can hold his ground in a debate with any mainstream astrophysicist. And that's the way that it should be!

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever considered that maybe people have negative opinions of it because every article even tangentially related to cosmology, you come in and write an essay on how this can be explained by electric universe?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for theories outside the mainstream and I applaud your efforts, but has it ever occurred to you that this might be the wrong approach?

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

If space plasmas are electrical, then that would almost necessarily mean that it is relevant to almost all of cosmology because plasma represents nearly all of the matter of space.

I think that some people find it refreshing. Not everybody buys into the notion that the universe consists of only 5% visible matter. To a lot of people, that is just completely absurd, and they appreciate the idea that our observations can be explained by phenomenon that we can understand within a laboratory.

The anti-EU sentiment precedes my arrival here though, for sure. It dates back to the Tim Thompson days. There was a lot of cheerleading of Tim Thompson even though (a) most enthusiasts did not understand the citations he presented in defiance of Don Scott's Electric Sun Hypothesis, and (b) Tim Thompson's goal was never to have a discussion, but rather to present excuses for not considering EU Theory. In fact, if you go back to the whole Ted Holden Venus albedo predicament when four Venus probes confirmed our terrestrial observations that Venus is emitting 20% more heat than it receives, you will see Tim Thompson suggest that the lander probe data should be averaged with terrestrial values (one of which was from the late 1800's) because the final value generated was more in line with expectations of thermal equilibrium (which was the impetus for the landers in the first place!). Rather than think about what he was saying, Tim Thompson was subsequently lauded for, "serving Ted Holden his head on a platter" (in the words of a recent wikipedia censor). It was never important that the lander probes possessed two types of instruments that could identify the direction of infrared heat at the surface of the planet (IR flux meters) -- and that these instruments unanimously indicated (and even agreed on the final albedo value) that the surface of the planet was emitting heat. In other words, nobody was even paying any real attention to what Tim Thompson was saying. People were just rooting for their side, as if it was a football game.

And this phenomenon even dates back to the Carl Sagan days when Sagan would contradict his own writings in an attempt to discredit Velikovsky. The hipocrisy mattered little to Sagan. All that mattered was discrediting the big bad Velikovsky, and people went along with it because Sagan had been on TV (!). Since then, a huge book has been released called "Carl Sagan and Immanuel Velikovsky" that disects their debates in excruciating detail, and demonstrates that Sagan was a lot more like Thomas Edison than Nikola Tesla.

The current attitudes of Slashdottians is really just a product of those past abuses, and their beliefs are a product of limiting their information to sources that support their own current world view. Nobody here knows anything about any of this history though. Not even the professional astrophysicists are aware of many of these stories because they've also restricted the sources they've been reading. The thing is, knowing the history of a theory is almost as important as knowing the theory itself. And as I like to say, it's very important to listen to the heretics. Even if you do not agree with them, it's important to understand that there even *is* disagreement, and their behavior during the disagreement. We like to think that science is a war of ideas, but in fact, personalities and politics can mean a lot.

And that's why I post.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

Interesting, if true. Can't find a reliable 3rd party source on it. Seems to have been removed from wikipedia. All signs, including your extra long post to a yes or no question, lead me to the conclusion that this theory is either completely wrong, or its proponents have done it a great disservice by not perusing it in the correct academic forums.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[pln2bz]

All signs, including your extra long post to a yes or no question, lead me to the conclusion that this theory is either completely wrong, or its proponents have done it a great disservice by not perusing it in the correct academic forums.

It will start as a trickle and end as a flood. Several of the papers in this recent IEEE journal are written by EU Theorists ...

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isYea r=2007&isnumber=4287017&Submit32=Go+To+Issue

But everybody should expect that the resistance will be staggering. These people are basically alleging that the past 100 years of interpreting space observations has been a giant, somewhat useless thought experiment. People have an expectation of receiving all of the answers all at once when you tell them that there are major problems with how we interpret space observations. And simultaneously, many people these days have a very limited attention span for this kind of thing. They want to be told everything within three hours, and no more.

We're still in the phase of educating people that this isn't a crackpot theory. There will have to be a subsequent debate phase too. All the while, these guys will be competing against the incredible NASA PR engine and library of documentaries that are playing out on cable channels 24/7. The cable channels tend to ask for second opinions on all of the shows they consider doing, and you can guess how that always goes. This is nowhere even near being played out.

The good news is that there are new technologies at the end. If it turns out that space-time is not warped after all, and people jumped the gun on the aether question, then that means that anti-gravitation is not as absurd as once thought.

Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater

[kindbud]

Well that's all I need to know. The one phenomena associated with an electrical arc - a burst of radio emission - has never been detected. Furthermore, a feature always associated with impacts - shatter cones - has no explanation from the electric arc guys. If they can answer those two things, they may be on to something. Until then, it's a very poorly supported hypothesis with some big holes in it.

When we (really) explore space

[JoeCommodore]

I kind of expect in the future when we have ships cheap/reliable enough for regular exploration of the solar system one of our future generations does something stupid by knocking some asteroid out of whack leading to a chain reaction that causes some big space catastrophe. Then we will have space traffic laws and all that other stuff.

Now wait a second...

[Schnoogs]

how can they possibly deduce the trajectories of those asteroids? Maybe it's a coincidence.

Re:hmm (It's called the Scientific Method, Moron)

[Anonymous Coward]

Do I really have to post anything but my modification to the title of original post? This is Slashdot,the home of snotty nerds who know almost nothing, and love to belittle their intellectual superiors, so I guess I have to spell it out.

Scientists look at facts and make hypothesis. They publish the ideas and facts that support them, and other scientists read them and add information that either supports or refutes the hypothesis. The sum total of knowledge increases over time.

The authors of the paper were doing simulations of asteroid dynamics. They found a possible event in the asteroid belt that may explain a known increase in meteor impacts in the inner solar system. They noted that this hypothesis fits in with two known large meteors, the proposed dinosaur extinction event and the moon crater Tycho. Their simulations add support to the earth impact hypothesis and the earth impact data indirectly supports their claim. This is how science works.

So how is this only a 'suggestion' with no real 'facts' to support it? I suggest that you 'get back to me' when you grow up and understand how intelligent people do real scientific inquiry. I know your little wee-wee got all hard when you had a chance to make a first post and trash some adults, but it just makes you look like a spoiled and nasty little child. Perhaps if you ever do anything useful in your life your attitude will change, but somehow I doubt that will ever happen.

Awfully Confusing For Us On Alpha Centauri

[jeffkjo1]

Further evidence for the asteroid mass extinction theory has been discovered as a break in the main asteroid belt of our solar system.

This is just like slashdot, submitters and editors never thinking about those of us on extra-solar planets in the Andromeda Galaxy. Everyone in the Milky Way is so planetary-centric. Would adding the extra clarification take long? No, and it would save a lot of headaches... seriously, I've got six heads out here too, do you realize how much Tylenol©®(TM) it takes to kill the pain?

Re:Awfully Confusing For Us On Alpha Centauri

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent poster must be a liar. Alpha Centauri is 4.37 light years away. In order to have posted his comment to this story in the timely manner that he did, he would have to be somewhere in our solar system to have recieved the transmission, and posted a reply about it.

Re:Awfully Confusing For Us On Alpha Centauri

[marcosdumay]

"do you realize how much Tylenol©®(TM) it takes to kill the pain?"

No, but I do realize you also have intelectual property laws there. Must have took a long time to develop that faster than light communication system.

Re:Awfully Confusing For Us On Alpha Centauri

[kayditty]

What the hell is a Cen doing in M31?

they just make the sh*t up!

[Orig_Club_Soda]

There's a brick missing from out back. Thats the brick that started global warming.

This is truly frightening...

[denttford]

...in this pre-9/11 world.

70 years and five days to go.

Re:uhhhh?

[The Master Control P]

And on what logical grounds do you base this eloquently worded rejection?

so... it was an asteroid then?

[catmistake]

I'm sorry... when was it decided that an asteroid from the Asteroid Belt caused the mass extinction????? Is this canon now? Nothing seems to explain the periodic extinctions (~26 million years) as tidely (heh) as an undiscovered star (Nemesis). Nearly all stars are in binary or larger systems, single star systems are quite unique. I think there's a small star-sized mass nearby, and every 26 million years its orbit takes it close enough to the Oort cloud or Kuiper Belt to disrupt the crazy things in the outer rim, sending them spiraling towards the Sun. Nemesis deadly perigee sends enough projectiles cascading toward the sun that one usually hits the Earth... You'll see I'm right in about 12 million years, and then 26 million years after that... just you wait.

voids are the new black

[Anonymous Coward]

So let me get this straight, dinosaurs became extinct because of an asteroid belt buckle?

I guess the earth got caught with it's pants down..

More likely

[Creepyguywithastick]

Sephiroth did it.

Freaky weird dream

[Dachannien]

I had this weird dream about a week ago, where I ran into these mask-wearing aliens whose masks were apparently life support devices (despite them being more like theater masks than conventional breathing masks). The reason they needed the masks was because 67 million years ago, they had colonized Earth, whose atmosphere at the time could support their form of life, but they needed to do some terraforming. Unfortunately, the terraforming resulted in catastrophic changes to the atmosphere that made the planet inhospitable to them. Coincidentally, those atmospheric changes also killed off the dinosaurs.

Anyway, I'm thinking of starting my own cult based on that dream. Anybody here have any advice?

Re:Freaky weird dream

[CmdrGravy]

Yes, try to really understand this vision of yours, on a soul level, and I believe it will be guidance enough for the road ahead but just in case you need a little inspiration here are some pointers.

1) The Earth was habitable for these, assume that they are, near perfect aliens - perhaps call them Angel or something until something happened. Since the Angels are surely perfect it's likely that with a closer inspection you'll see your vision revealed to you that some other agency was involved in ruining the terraforming.

2) Masks are a great idea, they can filter out all the harmful elements in the atmosphere introduced by the Evil Angels and possibly also help communion with the real Angels who must still be out there somewhere watching and judging us. You can also sell masks in a variety of models to suit all pockets.

3) There's a lot of Eco Warriors who are ready to take on any message or warning about the dangers of ruining the eco system, they also like masks and some of them are rich celebrities so I'd suggest targeting this area first. Perhaps build up to the full shocking revelation of our ancient angelic protectors a la Scientology.

Basically I think you've got some powerful elements to work with, all you need is a bit of publicity, some hard work and an evangelical core of first believers. You can probably get onto most daytime TV programmes already if you push the mask angle and the amazing benefits ( not to mention stylish new fashion ) of the mask. You can get onto the Sunday Morning religious nuttery programs by a firm belief in Angels and if you can find any sort of quasi scientific evidence for the atmosphere ( which you surely can ) which can't have been created by natural causes then you'll have scientists and eco warriors sucked in hook line and sinker. I say go for it.

Re:hmm (It's called the Scientific Method, Moron)

[umghhh]

This is a sign of something more. The overall lack of basic logic capability (on /. as well as in real life) is just a fact. I see it every morning when I enter my office and open my mail box. It is fascinating to see educated people telling me for instance that you do not need any documentation and review process on (software) enginering projects. It is just a question of time to see them looking for reasons of failure. Surprisingly this reason is either aliens from outer space or the messangers.

Of course one shall never confuse simple incompetence and lack of knowledge with stupidity and bad will. The former can be eradicated the later not.

Sun-grazing

[Guppy]

Just curious -- although it is unlikely for an object to actually hit the sun, how likely are objects to be tidally disrupted or boiled away by near-grazes?

Re:Sun-grazing

[monk.e.boy]

That's what a comet is. The surface is boiling away, the core is moving at a different speed to the boiled particles, so they appear to be a halo/tail.

Re:Sun-grazing

[splutty]

Uhm.. Not exactly. The boiled particles are essentially very low weight, and are being 'blown' away by the solar wind. This is why the tail of a comet always points away from the sun.

Re:Sun-grazing

[splutty]

Gah. Mass. Not Weight.... *slaps self silly*

Electric Universe loonies

[1u3hr]

As title.

God created asteroids

[DragonTHC]

He also created hemorrhoids.

Saw this coming

[jsiren]

I tell ya, we should've gotten the asteroid suspenders.

I salute you!

[Gazzonyx]

Just watched the videos on YouTube. Thank you, sir. I was going to do stuff tonight before you had to go and get me off on this tangent for several hours. Intriguing stuff; it's a pity people won't let themselves ask "what if our theories are wrong?".

I'm not sure that I fully support this model, but it makes a lot of sense, and as usual the mainstream view is, "this isn't what I was told it right, so it's wrong. I'll arrogantly wave my hand, attack peoples character, resort to name calling, and make sure I never present a single chard of debatable evidence to bolster my position." One only needs to read a few criticisms from the video to verify what I've said.

I would love to see an academic debate on this. It seems we've got the idea that we've finally figured it all out... just the way that everyone else before us thought the same. I sometimes laugh at the very notion that we've made any progress when we can't even humble ourselves enough to accept that we might be wrong. If you're in the mainstream of anything and you're sure that you're right, you'll be a victim of your own pride in the worst way - you'll be forced to defend your position until you can't hold your ground any longer and become 'that guy who was replaced by the new guy who has the right idea'. I think we know where the 'new guy' ends his career, as well.

Ironically, I could be completely wrong. I may have missed the mark on this one, as I clearly don't know anything about cosmology, astronomy, or physics. Perhaps I'll be shown to be the fool. ;)

Re:I salute you!

[pln2bz]

EU Theorists can hold their ground quite well in a debate with professional astrophysicists when the rules are fair. The fair rules requirement pretty much rules out most discussions on the Bad Astronomy Forum. You can view a loose attempt at a debate here:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB/phpBB2/vi ewtopic.php?t=410

ScienceApologist is the person who has been censoring EU Theory from wikipedia. The discussion gets quite thick at times, but I recommend paying close attention to the way that ScienceApologist presents himself if you manage to skim through that. A more formal debate is supposedly in the works on that same forum area, although I have yet to see any action on it yet.

I've been looking into this stuff for about a year now, and it's quite apparent to me at least that there is value in this theory. The Slashdot crew likes to act as if we've already discovered everything there is to know about space, but they just don't see the bigger picture that every time you see an article on Space.com where a scientist is complaining that they don't understand what they are seeing (which happens on an almost weekly basis), that that means that the prior theory was wrong.

Tycho Crater Origins

[hey0you0guy]

I always thought that the Tycho Crater was formed when the Monolith touched down...

Sith Lord Vader

[Anonymous Coward]

It was Lord Vader and his super Star Destroyer blasting the hole through while chasing the Falcon.

Atheism is religion

[TheSciBoy]

(Offtopic)As regards to your sig.

Atheism is the belief that there is/are no god/gods (see wikipedia). Belief in absence of proof means it's a religion. I'm an atheist and I believe that god has no place in our universe, but it is only a belief, I have no proof. If I had proof then this would be science and not religion and I would have been killed by religious fanatics a long time ago.

Re:Atheism is religion

[MightyMartian]

A religion is a body of beliefs involving rituals and supernatural beliefs. Atheism is not a religion any more than accounting is a religion.

Re:Atheism is religion

[EsbenMoseHansen]

(Offtopic)As regards to your sig.

Atheism is the belief that there is/are no god/gods (see wikipedia). Belief in absence of proof means it's a religion. I'm an atheist and I believe that god has no place in our universe, but it is only a belief, I have no proof. If I had proof then this would be science and not religion and I would have been killed by religious fanatics a long time ago.

Atheism is disbelief rather than belief, which makes a difference. As explained in my sig: Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby. Anyway, there is as much proof for Atheism as for say the laws of gravity. And even if this were not the case, atheist only refuse to acknowledge a belief without evidence; given solid evidence most atheist would believe (if not worship) in the invisible pink unicorn or whatever.

Atheism can be succesfully defended scientifically. Religions cannot (or least, none I have encountered can). That is one difference.

But do bring debates such as this to an appropriate forum .

Re:Atheism is religion

[StalinsNotDead]

Atheism is not a religion any more than accounting is a religion.

I take it you've never had to turn in an expense report.

my vote goes to

[Anonymous Coward]

"asshole with slashdot account"

Screen Shot....

[realsilly]

Screen shot or it didn't happen.

How is the FP "Redundant"?

[mikehoskins]

At the risk of being modded down to oblivion, how is the First Post considered "Redundant"?!?!? (First post -- Redundant -- where's the logic in that? ...I digress..)

Actually, if I had any mod points, I'd mark him "Insightful".

How many "redundant" articles do there need to be on /. about junk science until people get it? *Most* of the "science" articles you read are sensationalized junk and are all about maximizing grant money.
    http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aslashdot.org +%22junk+science%22+grant%7Cmoney&ie=utf-8&oe=utf- 8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firef ox-a

Do people believe everything they read or do they still have an analytical brain? (Obviously, somebody with mod points doesn't).

I agree with the "Redundant" FP:
  This article was written on the basis of a suggestion? Please get back to me when you have facts.

Junk that is a mere "suggestion" is obviously not fact-based. As a matter of "fact," I shall not read this article on principle.

Miranda

[YouAreNumber6]

So this is where Miranda was. How long before we find dead astronauts on the moon?

Re:Miranda

[PapaBoojum]

Me thinks you mean Minerva.

Bruce Willis

[Anonymous Coward]

Where was he on that one?

Hole in Asteroid Belt Reveals . . .

[moeinvt]

We'll see more holes appear in the belt as the universe expands.

Re:Hole in Asteroid Belt Reveals . . .

[BenBoy]

> We'll see more holes appear in the belt as the universe expands. Funny, I usually put more holes in my belt when my universe contracts; when it expands, I let it out a bit ...

Re:hmm (It's called the Scientific Method, Moron)

[mikehoskins]

The point of the first post is that the article description said it's based off of a suggestion.

Whether the description is accurate or not, I don't know. This description, which, again, may be accurate or inaccurate tells me "junk science, dead ahead". Ergo, my "lameness" filter says, "shields up" because there's this thing called "logic."

Why? Suggestion == Rumor (especially for large values of "Suggestion").

That implies that somebody is publishing to the public way too early. Before they publish anything, they ought to *test* their hypothesis much more fully. When it's observable and repeatable, it's said to be scientific. You forgot that part of the scientific method -- testing.

In fact, it can't even rightly be called a hypothesis until it's gone through some semblance of sanity checking (observable and repeatable).

Hypotheses can be quickly ruled in or out by "desk checking" one's own work and letting facts speak for themselves. There should be evidence of something having actually occurred, rather than mere speculation.

In science, they should self review and peer review before getting a press release...unless grant money's what they're really after, which is what junk science is all about: http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aslashdot.org +%22junk+science%22+grant%7Cmoney&ie=utf-8&oe=utf- 8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firef ox-a

Junk science includes small studies (large margins of error), sensational press releases, ad-hoc answers, suggestions, rumors, mathematical modeling (with no fact to back up the models), etc. ...but hey, there's grant money to be made!

(Mathematical models are good, too, but that's about asking questions, not giving answers. For instance, a programmer can always botch a model, purposely or accidentally, and get faulty conclusions, or worse yet, correct conclusions from a busted model).

Going straight to a press release based off a "suggestion" and mathematical modeling has *nothing* in the world to do with the scientific method. Ergo, "shields up" and "don't believe everything you read".

On the other hand, this group may be asking the right questions -- and *that's* good. It's what scientific inquiry is all about. Inquiry starts the ball rolling. Inquiry is the journey, not the destination.

Serving up a press release based on scientific inquiry is way too premature; that is, until they have facts to back it up.

Also, most of your reply was Ad Hominem attack, ergo, I shouldn't even reply to it, but for some reason, I feel the need to recommend a class on logic. It would do you well....

Re:hmm (It's called the Scientific Method, Moron)

[thatskinnyguy]

Exactly. So why am I deemed a troll all-of-a-sudden?

Re: RTFA before you can it

[Yoweigh116]

Speculation, perhaps, though exactly pure. They've got some data to back up their claims.

From the article: "Studies of sediment samples and a meteorite from this time period indicate that the Chicxulub impactor had a carbonaceous chondrite composition much like the well-known primitive meteorite Murchison. This composition is enough to rule out many potential impactors but not those from the Baptistina family. Using this information in their simulations, the team found a 90 percent probability that the object that formed the Chicxulub crater was a refugee from the Baptistina family. " (emphasis added)

They tested the orbits and chemical compositions of a bunch of NEO's. The orbits fit this group, and the chemical composition fit the Yucatan crater.

How to get Slashdot Coverage

[phulegart]

If you want strangers to think you are smart, just remember to label an ongoing topic of discussion as Sensationalism, and link it to a list of other subjects that you sarcastically mark as "Hot Topics".

That way, your destructive attitude (similar in many ways to the destructive force of the asteroids in the topic) will make you *appear* like you actually know something.

Now, I'm sure that you read the friggin article. Since none of us were there to see the impact in the asteroid belt, you are correct in that there *is* speculation involved. However, it is pretty obvious that it is not PURE speculation, since they are using researched information to form their theory. They quite openly talk about the percentages of probability of the events having happened as they described them, thus stating that although they believe things happened the way they have figured it out, it is possible that they are wrong. But they did not speculate on the composition of what hit us. They did not speculate on the composition of other objects we have been hit by. They did not speculate on the frequency that we have been getting hit with objects. They did not speculate on where we were hit by the one that most likely killed the dinosaurs. They are using some speculation as to the date we were hit, but they are using data that puts it at around the right time for an extinction level event.

So throwing around a phrase like "Pure Speculation" is pure ignorance. You are just looking to get a slice of that coverage with your "Pshaw. They ain't knowin diddly. They jus lookin fer money an 'tenshun, ah reckon." shtick.

Minerva

[YouAreNumber6]

You're right of course. It's been too long since I read it. Back to geek school I guess. http://www.webscription.net/10.1125/Baen/034530107 2/0345301072.htm

You forgot to add one thing to ur formulae

[Ex-MislTech]

Gravity...

Re:hmm (It's called the Scientific Method, Moron)

[mikehoskins]

Riddle of the Sphinx....
Why some people post on Slashdot....

I don't know, either.

Re:hmm (It's called the Scientific Method, Moron)

[mikehoskins]

BTW, I thought you were just asking an honest question - one on my mind. ...one on my mind all the time on Slashdot and Digg...

Some people just refuse to analyze themselves, what they believe, and what they read.

Socrates said: The unexamined life is not worth living...

I think this also applies to anything you read, hear, etc.

Re:Atheism is religion (how are you wording it?)

[mikehoskins]

Atheism is disbelief rather than belief, which makes a difference. As explained in my sig: Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Are you sure? I've met plenty of Atheist dogmatists in real life as well as in the blog-o-sphere.

The assertion "there is no God" is a dogmatic religious statement. You are attempting to prove a negative, which you cannot do. This is an Atheistic religious belief.

"There is no evidence of God's existence" is far less dogmatic, and thus closer to neutral, or disbelief. This is Agnosticism, or a lack of religious belief.

If you examine your statement and your "proof", you might just find vestiges of religion everywhere.

Anyway, there is as much proof for Atheism as for say the laws of gravity.
To say this demands some serious proof -- proof of a negative, at that....

So, prove it, please. Links to Atheistic Apologist web sites doesn't count...

PSYOPS 101 = FEAR

[Rockin'Robert]

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
If nothing else, there is hope.
ASTEROID IMPACT KILLED OFF DINOSAURS
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/SIC/impact_cratering/Ch icxulub/Chicx_title.html
We're next!
#BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
RR

Re:Atheism is religion (how are you wording it?)

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Atheism is disbelief rather than belief, which makes a difference. As explained in my sig: Atheism is a religion in the same way that not collecting stamps is a hobby.

Are you sure? I've met plenty of Atheist dogmatists in real life as well as in the blog-o-sphere.

It is not my experience. Try to press these atheists, I expect they would admit that a god could exist, depending on the definition of god, but that it is a possibility so remote that believing in god is like believing that dropping a glass will go upward if only you release it at exactly 10am in the morning. Do remember to explicitly define "God". E.g, is this being benevolent? omniscient? omnipotent? and so on. Note that the latter 2 is logically mutually exclusive.

The assertion "there is no God" is a dogmatic religious statement. You are attempting to prove a negative, which you cannot do. This is an Atheistic religious belief.

No, it is just a shorthand of "the possibility of a god is so remote that assuming anything but absence of gods would be silly". We do the same when we say "I know that you can get a dual-core CPU from AMD"... technically, it might be untrue, but noone sane would regard that statement as religious dogma.

"There is no evidence of God's existence" is far less dogmatic, and thus closer to neutral, or disbelief. This is Agnosticism, or a lack of religious belief.

I really won't go into that definition game. Most atheists call someone agnostic if they believe there is a fair chance (say, 30% or better) chance that a god exists, and atheist if not. But many agnostics for some reason believe that atheist take the non-existance as a dogmatic belief rather than a conclusion from the available evidence. I can assure you, and I suggest you ask in any atheistic forum if you don't believe me, that this is rarely the case. (Yes, there are always a few vocal nutcases, atheists are certainly not spared from those). Some atheists even believe in stuff like reincarnation, even if I do find that extremely silly.

If you examine your statement and your "proof", you might just find vestiges of religion everywhere.

You do realize that my sig is not a proof? It's just a small sentence to get people to think. I suppose you *could* make a hobby out of not collecting stamps, but most people that doesn't haven't.

Anyway, there is as much proof for Atheism as for say the laws of gravity.
To say this demands some serious proof -- proof of a negative, at that....

So, prove it, please. Links to Atheistic Apologist web sites doesn't count... Sure. Give me a definition of (a theistic) God and lists its/his/her abilities, and I shall give you your proof. I'm not about to list proofs in all the different meanings to that word. Also note that "proof" is proof in the scientific sense... it is just evidence.

Also note that some (like Einstein, I'm told) uses God in the meaning "the natural world". In that sense, God does exist, but I do not find that terminology very helpful. Indeed, Einstein often had to clarify his position several times. He also called himself agnostic, though some atheists claim that he was an atheist. It all depends on the exact definition, and I am not a big fan of wordgames like that :)

Finally, I would still like to invite you to a forum where such is discussed. I can but give you my personal viewpoints, and while I claim myself to be atheistic I do not claim to represent atheism. I doubt anyone can do that.