[meteorite-list] Comet impact!

From: star-bits_at_comcast.net <star-bits_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 6 00:53:15 2006
Message-ID: <040520062034.1632.443429D9000CF7550000066022007340769C9B070DD39D0E9B9C_at_comcast.net>

Dave Harris wrote:

<Amazing to see that the copper target that clouted the Comet Tempel 1
kicked out 250,000 tons of water when it collided!
There a great lot of info on the Web on this, but I wonder how this fits in
with how there's so much water on Earth....was it transported via cometary
collisions or the product of chemical reactions (or both, indeed!)?>

250,000 tons of water sounds like a lot, but to put it into perspective it would fill a:

cube 200.08 feet on a side
football field including endzones to a height of 138.9 feet
official soccer field max size 360x240 feet to a height of 92.6 feet
cylinder radius 200 feet would have a height of 63.7 feet
cylinder radius 300 feet would have a height of just 8.6 feet
cone radius 300 feet would have a height of 85 feet

    If you say a cone roughly approximates a crater shape and the comet is half water half other stuff by volume then a cone radius 300 feet would need a depth of 170 feet to accommodate 250000 tons of water. That is a big hole, but still smaller than most people would image when they think of 250,000 tons of water.

--
Eric Olson
ELKK Meteorites
http://www.star-bits.com

Received on Wed 05 Apr 2006 04:34:33 PM PDT