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Archive for the ‘asteroid/comet impacts’ category: Page 15

Dec 22, 2021

Scientists solved the mystery of comet’s green shade

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, chemistry, existential risks

But strangely, this green shade disappears before it reaches the one or two tails trailing behind the comet.

Astronomers, scientists, and chemists have been puzzled by this mystery for almost 90 years. In 1930, it was suggested that this phenomenon was due to sunlight destroying diatomic carbon. The carbon is created from the interaction between sunlight and organic matter on the comet’s head. However, due to the instability of dicarbon, this theory has been hard to test.

Scientists at UNSW Sydney have finally found a way to test this chemical reaction in a laboratory – and in doing so, has proven this 90-year-old theory correct. They solved this mystery with the help of a vacuum chamber, a lot of lasers, and one powerful cosmic reaction.

Dec 18, 2021

Meteorites that produce K-feldspar-rich ejecta blankets correspond to mass extinctions

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

Meteorite impacts load the atmosphere with dust and cover the Earth’s surface with debris. They have long been debated as a trigger of mass extinctions throughout Earth history. Impact winters generally last 10 years, whereas ejecta blankets persist for 103–105 years. We show that only meteorite impacts that emplaced ejecta blankets rich in K-feldspar (Kfs) correlate to Earth system crises (n = 11, p 0.000005). Kfs is a powerful ice-nucleating aerosol, yet is normally rare in atmospheric dust mineralogy. Ice nucleation plays an important part in cloud microphysics, which modulates the global albedo.

Dec 9, 2021

Study Pinpoints Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Impact Happening In Spring To Early Summer Of 66 Million Years Ago

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, biological, existential risks, food

According to a news release by The University of Manchester, a groundbreaking study published in the journal Scientific Reports provides new evidence that helps us to understand the asteroid impact that brought an end to 75 percent of life on Earth, including non-avian dinosaurs, at the Cretaceous-Paleogene transition 66 million years ago.

This project has been a huge undertaking but well worth it. For so many years we’ve collected and processed the data, and now we have compelling evidence that changes how we think of the KPg event, but can simultaneously help us better prepare for future ecological and environmental hazards.

Time of year plays an important role in many biological functions— reproduction, available food sources, feeding strategies, host-parasite interactions, seasonal dormancy, breeding patterns, to name a few. It is hence no surprise that the time of year for a global-scale disaster can play a big role in how harshly it impacts life. The seasonal timing of the Chicxulub impact has therefore been a critical question for the story of the end-Cretaceous extinction. Until now the answer to that question has remained unclear.

Dec 8, 2021

A Stadium Sized Asteroid Is Approaching Us This Weekend | Everything You Need To Know | Nereus

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

A huge asteroid the size of the Eiffel Tower is approaching our planet. The asteroid is named 4,660 Nereus and has been flagged ‘Potentially Hazardous’ by NASA. Nereus is 330 meters long and will break into Earth’s orbit on Saturday, December 11. The colossal asteroid is traveling at 23,700 km/h towards our planet.

On December 11, the asteroid will make its closest approach to Earth. It will come within 3.86 million km, about ten times the distance between Earth and the Moon. Although it sounds like an enormous gap on cosmic scales, it is actually a stone’s throw away.

Continue reading “A Stadium Sized Asteroid Is Approaching Us This Weekend | Everything You Need To Know | Nereus” »

Dec 1, 2021

Laser system could vaporize dangerous asteroids

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks, habitats, robotics/AI

Circa 2013 o.o


Earth dodged a gigantic space bullet Friday when the 143,000-ton asteroid known as 2012 DA14 came within 17,200 miles of the Indian Ocean. Scientists and engineers are looking for ways to head off such close calls by targeting potentially dangerous asteroids well before they’re in a position to do us any harm.

A group called the B612 Foundation (a reference to the home asteroid of the Little Prince in the classic French novella) recently announced a mission to build a spacecraft that would track dangerous midsize asteroids, and a fledgling company called Deep Space Industries has floated a plan to build swarms of robots that could mine — and even destroy — space rocks.

Continue reading “Laser system could vaporize dangerous asteroids” »

Dec 1, 2021

NASA says huge, ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid will break into Earth’s orbit next week

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

An asteroid the size of the Eiffel Tower is heading towards Earth this month and it’s considered an especially unique piece of rock by scientists.

The asteroid 4,660 Nereus is classified as a “potentially hazardous” piece of rock because of its proximity to Earth. On Dec. 11, NASA expects it to be at its closest point to Earth over a 20-year period. The asteroid was discovered back in 1982.

Nov 24, 2021

NASA And SpaceX Launch Experimental Spacecraft That Will Collide With An Asteroid —But It’s Not ‘Armageddon’

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks, satellites

NASA on Tuesday night successfully launched its experimental asteroid deflecting spacecraft which is set to smash into an asteroid at 15,000 miles per hour and serve as a test run for countering any future doomsday scenario where a large space rock could end up on a collision course with the Earth.

KEY FACTS The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), developed by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) launched from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base at around 10.20 a.m. local time Tuesday, aboard SpaceX’s reusable Falcon 9 rocket.

Sometime in 2022, the DART spacecraft is expected to smash into the asteroid Dimorphos which orbits a larger satellite called Didymos—neither of which pose a threat to Earth at the moment—with the hope of deflecting its course.

Nov 23, 2021

Supercomputers Flex Their AI Muscles

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, climatology, cosmology, existential risks, robotics/AI, supercomputing

New ways to measure the top supercomputers’ smarts in the AI field include searching for dark energy, predicting hurricanes, and finding new materials for energy storage.


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[img src=/media/img/missing-image.svg alt= Tune in to hear how NASA has engineered and asteroid impact with the DART spacecraft. class= popular-box__article-list__image lazy-image-van-mos optional-image sizes=99vw data-normal=/media/img/missing-image.svg data-original-mos= https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/i7efrzkNj5VvD87EDy3yne.jpg data-pin-media= https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/i7efrzkNj5VvD87EDy3yne.jpg data-pin-nopin= true].

Nov 20, 2021

Calls grow for US to bolster defense against asteroid threat

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks, government, law

Experts are sounding the alarm about the threat of asteroids to life on Earth — and warning that the United States does not have a clear plan to prevent catastrophe.

Though NASA says the odds are literally one in a millennium, no US agency is explicitly responsible if space rocks are headed our way.

“No one is tasked with mitigation,” former Air Force space strategist Peter Garretson, an expert in planetary defense told Politico. “Congress did put in law that the White House identify who should be responsible, but fully four subsequent administrations so far have blown off their request.”

Nov 20, 2021

NASA is tracking a 1,000-foot-tall asteroid that’s headed towards Earth

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

NASA scientists have issued a warning about a “Potentially Hazardous Asteroid” (PHA) that will fly close to earth in mid-December. The asteroid is larger than 90 percent of asteroids, according to Daily Record, but still smaller than some of the larger reported asteroids. Thankfully, the asteroid won’t come close enough to our planet to do any damage. Near passes like these happen somewhat frequently. But the term “near” is relative when you’re talking about the infinite vastness of outer space.

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NASA predicts that the massive asteroid will pass by Earth on December 11, just a month and a few days from now. The asteroid has been classified as 4,660 Nereus, and NASA does consider it very hazardous. The organization says that the asteroid is almost three times the size of a football pitch — roughly the size of the Eiffel tower.

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