[meteorite-list] Crackpot impact theory

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun Sep 25 03:22:59 2005
Message-ID: <43365030.9670B1A7_at_bhil.com>

Hi,

    Hey, I'm not saying that the "comet" made
from a supernova isn't garbage -- it IS garbage.
    However, the irradiations that Firestone
discovered seem to be real -- it's the other
stuff that's whack-o. Morrison's right; it's
a no-brainer.
    Which leaves us with the problem of explaining
those irradiation episodes. A supernova is the
obvious explanation for an episode of irradiation.
    Supernovae are the most ignored long-term
general threat the Earth faces, and that's a
mistake.
    Part of the problem is that supernovae IN our
galaxy are obscured BY our Galaxy, it being a flat
disk of stars. For a long time, the estimate was
for three per century; newer analysis suggests that
one every 13 to 17 years is more like it. That means
that, by random chance distribution, every fifteen
million years or so, we would be within 50 light
years of one. That would not be good.
    As always, the important thing is location,
location, location, and that is NOT random. I
wish I could tell you that we live in a better
neighborhood, but the truth is, we're living in a
bad part of the galaxy.
    We're on the edge of a "star-forming region,"
which is just where supernovae happen. Since they're
NOT randomly distributed, our risk is much higher.
    You should look at:
<http://www.aip.org/pt/vol-55/iss-5/p19.html>
    Nice respectable science from John Hopkins and
the NIH, which does a fine job of detailing our
dangerous position. I quote: "the Scorpius-
Centaurus association of hot young stars within
just a few hundred light-years of us has produced
about 20 supernova explosions within the past
10 million years."
    A little quick arithmetic with my fingers reveals
that's an average of one every half million years.
Worse, the motions of these stars may have brought
them closer in past years. Read the article in
Physics Today (link above).
    You may recall that a few years ago, a study,
after sifting through a huge muck of oceanic sediments
with a mass spectrometer, found three (yes, three)
Fe60 atoms. Big deal, you say, three ATOMS, but
Fe60 doesn't occur "naturally;" it is only produced
in supernovae. They were all in one 2.8 million year
old sample of sediment, and they actually correspond
to a high flux, meaning we were way too close to a
Type II supernova back then.
    These authors suggest that it was a Sco-Cen
supernova and was responsible for a marine mini-
extinction event. You judge. In judging the article's
references to relative dangers of supernova, you should
bear in mind that supernovae come in different varieties
and the assertion that we could be undamaged by one as
close a ten light years is based on the tiniest variety.
    Other supernovae are much, much worse, releasing
10^53 ergs instantaneously, about 1000 times all the energy
that will produced by our Sun during its 10,000,000,000
year lifetime. Bad news. I'd like to see that, of course,
but from about 1000 light years away... You wouldn't want
front row seats. And anybody who thinks it would be OK
to be within 10 light years of that event, is just crazy.
    If Firestone wants to prove his iron spherules are from
a supernova, why didn't he check them for Fe60? That would
be proof positive. But there is no mention of isotopes. No,
it's another case of a guy who's got data but a totally
dumb explanation for it. (Louis Frank is another example.)
But orphan data is still data. We owe it to the Universe
to be humble toward the simplest fact.
    And further, supernovae are probably not the only
sources of intense radiation. We are still sorting out
the sources of gamma ray bursts, with a lot more to learn
than what we've learned already.
    Ain't it always the way?


Sterling K. Webb
-------------------------------------------------------------
Darren Garrison wrote:

> On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 21:06:58 -0500, "Sterling K. Webb" <kelly_at_bhil.com> wrote:
>
> > The author, Firestone, is a "real" scientist,
> >but the crazy comet made out of a supernova
> >he gets from the site holder of this web site:
> ><http://abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/>
>
> Here's what another real scientist http://www.thesolarsystem.org/davidmorrison.html has to say about
> his new "theory":
>
> http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/09/24/BAGG9ET78M1.DTL
>
> The Firestone-West proposal drew quick criticism from a leading expert on cosmic impact events,
> David Morrison of NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View.
>
> "Apparently, none of this work has been published in a peer-reviewed journal," Morrison said in an
> e-mail to The Chronicle. "The idea that debris from a supernova explosion coalesced into
> low-density, comet-like objects is unsupported in terms of any science that I know of." Also, the
> claim of tiny impact craters in the tusks "is pretty obviously false," Morrison said. "No such
> grains could get through the atmosphere."
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Received on Sun 25 Sep 2005 03:22:24 AM PDT