[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

re: cometary shower going on NOW?

Hi Gene and List:

I will have to listen to the Shoemaker VCR tape a few more time to remember
the details. Shoemaker said that a paper in, I think it was, "Nature"
magazine in 1995 got him started and I think the author was  Ken Burns and
he mentioned several others scientist. The paper which I am sure was his
main visual aid at the lecture reported to show increases in cosmic dust
particles of a certain size or range of sizes which increased during these
past 70 million years and how the cosmic dust directly related to increased
impact flux rates.  Shoemaker was excited about the paper and contacted the
scientist involved and decided to do his own research in Italy which
ultimately confirmed the same chart information with geological data of
shocked quartz in strata over the same period.
Shoemaker confirmed that he thought ultimately the impact rate over the
last 3.2 billion years was related to the travel of the solar system (Sun
and/or Earths) travel around the galaxy.  He made special note of the z
motion of the Sun in relation to other G type suns and how the our sun only
moves 75 parsecs through the galactic plane and other stars of similar type
the z motion was 300 parsecs(z motion = up and down motion).  Gene
indicated that this shorter z motion put our solar system in the area of
dense star clusters for a longer time and this may strip the Oort cloud of
its outer shell of material causing increased cometary activity some period
of time following the passage by other stars.

"On the plus side, comets are *usually* easier to spot than asteroids" as
you said but on the negative side it comes on with shorter lead time,
usually at a considerable greater speed and cause considerable more damage
on impacts.
Let's not get too optimistic that we can stop a comet because I think you
will find that the difficulty in deverting a comet is a few magnitudes
higher than an asteroid given the same amount of lead time.

Maybe in 50 million years some other form of intelligent life will be
escavating mankinds bones calling them "long pigs which walk on two legs".
These intelligent creatures would say "Oh they all died in the eocene
period of gelogical time and I wonder what caused these pigs demise perhaps
desease, famine, flood, or climate change (EL NINO) etc etc....

We will know the truth was that mankind would have survived had mankind 
had it's priorities right. 
On our tombstone reads "Mankind died of stupid"

Cheers,
Victor
----------
> From: Gene Roberts 
> To: Met List 
> Subject: Re: Cometary Shower NOW?
> Date: Saturday, March 28, 1998 6:05 PM
> 
> Hello Victor,
> 
> It's interesting that this ties in with Ramphino's thought about a 30
million
> year extenuation cycle believed to be triggered (or helped along) by the
solar
> system passing through the galactic lens and perturbing the orbits of
cometary
> bodies in the Oort cloud into the inner solar system. We passed through
the
> lens a few million years ago and could be seeing increased activity as a
> result. Of course, "cometary shower" should not be thought of as a deluge
of
> comets, although increased activity always means a increased chance of an
> impact. On the plus side, comets are *usually* easier to spot than
asteroids. 
> 
> Did Shoemaker give any explanation for "knowning" the cometary activity
for
> the past 70 million years?
> 
> Gene
>  
> Victor D. Noto wrote:
> > 
> > To List:
> > 
> > I just got finished listening to Dr Gene Shoemakers last lecture on VCR
> > tape that I got from  Robert Dick ELPA Production P.O. Box 79 Rideau
Ferry,
> > ON Canada KOG 1WO
> > http://www.physics.carleton.ca/~rdick/
> > 
> > It was not really that easy to hear ,the audio was homemade kind of,
but
> > the point Shoemaker was making over and over to me is that we are now
in
> > the
> > middle of a cometary shower of the type that killed off the dinasaurs
65
> > million years ago and he was ninety percent sure that all or most all
of
> > the large impactor craters on Earth were the result of comets not
> > asteroids.
> > These cometary showers last several million years but the chart Gene
showed
> > put us right now on a peak of a flux shower twice that of any other
period
> > in the last 70 million years.
> > 
> > Anyone who listened to this tape got anything different?
> > 
> > Victor
> >
----------------------------------------------------------------------------


> > 
> > ---
> > Victor Noto - Kissimmee, Florida USA
> > vnn2@phoenixat.com
> > http://www.phoenixat.com/~vnn2/BIGROCK.htm
> > Website theme quote:
> > "Life really is a Rock and
> > the Big Rock giveth and taketh away all life!!"
> >
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
Follow-Ups: