[meteorite-list] Another awful meteorite-related TV event

From: al mitt <almitt_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 12:02:49 -0400
Message-ID: <46DC365CC0CC43E0A4AFEE143129EE5B_at_StarmanPC>

Greetings,

Seems to me if a big one came down and did break into mantle material that
we might have a magma wave and simultaneous volcanic eruptions with some of
the major volcanoes on Earth. Not that anyone would care at that point.

--AL Mitterling


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>
To: <cynapse at charter.net>; "Meteorite List"
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 9:16 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Another awful meteorite-related TV event


> Hi, List,
>
> To quantify that impact, I went and ran the numbers
> through the online Impact Calculator that uses the
> Jay Melosh model:
> http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
>
> If 216 Kleopatra is 220 km x 100 km x 100 km, its
> volume is 17,278,875.96 km^3 or a total of (take a
> deep breath) 1,778,875,960,000,000 m^3. That's
> 1.7 quadrillion cubic meters and its mass would be at
> least 3.5 quadrillion metric tons. (Dogbone and Potato
> asteroids have lots of voids and a high porosity.)
>
> No, wait! It's 114 Kassandra? Get your Apocalypses
> straight, people!
>
> The volume of 114 Kassandra is less than Kleopatra:
> 523,598,644,700,000 cubic meters. The mass of
> 114 Kassandra, if rock, has to be at a minimum of
> 1,500,000,000,000,000 tons, although some sources
> say it's only 1,000,000,000,000,000. That big number
> is a Quadrillion tons, in case you want to know.
>
> OK, it's Kassandra! Smaller, lighter. Really puny.
> I gave it an intercept velocity of 47 km/s, a little
> slow for an eccentric orbit from the Asteroid Zone,
> and an incidence angle of 45 degrees.
>
> The energy of the collision is 1.20 x 10^24 Joules
> or 268,000,000 MegaTons TNT. The Calculator says
> "The average interval between impacts of this size
> somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years
> is 360,000,000 years."
>
> That energy is the equivalent of an explosion created
> by detonating a nuclear arsenal 1800 times bigger
> than the entire nuclear arsenals of all the nations of
> the world -- at once.
>
> The final crater diameter is 39.5 km or 24.5 miles;
> its final depth is 0.895 km or 0.556 miles. That seems
> oddly small for something so big. Why is that? Well,
> the Calculator says that the final crater is replaced
> by a large, circular melt province. The volume of the
> target melted or vaporized is 6410 cubic km or 1540
> cubic miles. The melt volume is 2.87 times the
> crater volume
>
> If 114 Kassandra hit Los Angeles, you'd probably be
> alright (for a while) if you were in New York City (or
> Boston). You'd be alright, that is, if you can withstand
> the shock wave which, at that distance, would have
> a wind velocity of 140 mph, or a hurricane-level
> Force Nine Gale on the Beaufort Scale. Where I live,
> it'll be over 205 mph.
>
> The real problem, I suspect, is in the vaporization of
> a substantial percentage of that "melt province." If
> 10% of the rock vaporized, or 1.5 trillion tons of rock
> vapor would be distributed very quickly through the
> atmosphere at temperatures of more than 2000
> degrees F. That quantity of rock vapor amounts to
> about 20,000 tons of rock vapor per square mile
> of the Earth's surface.
>
> The Impact Calculator does not discuss the contribution
> of the asteroid to the mass of rock vapor. I would suggest
> that at least 1% of it would survive as "mere" rock vapor
> (instead of plasma) -- that's an additional ten trillion tons,
> raising the distribution to 110,000 tons of rock vapor per
> square mile of the Earth's surface (about 190,000,000
> square miles).
>
> I suggest a very study, fireproofed umbrella would
> be a good idea if you plan on going out...
>
> This is an impact at least 30 to 50 times worse than
> the Chicxulub Impact which, it has been suggested,
> burned most of the vegetation off the planet with its
> rock vapor plume. 114 Kassandra's effect could only
> be characterized as the "Krispy Kritter" impact.
>
> It sounds like a a lousy environment in which to
> stage a mini-series. But... That's Entertainment!
Received on Thu 02 Jul 2009 12:02:49 PM PDT