Hole in Asteroid Belt Reveals Extinction Asteroid 175
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.""
How to get mainstream coverage (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater (Score:2, Interesting)
When we (really) explore space (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater (Score:2, Interesting)
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 [umd.edu]
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.
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?
Sun-grazing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No crap (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
I salute you! (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [google.com] 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:No crap (Score:3, Interesting)
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:Gap in asteroid tracking data -- Earth at risk? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Problems with Tycho as an Impact Crater (Score:3, Interesting)