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Bolides, Cosmology, Dark Matter, Dystopian, Extinction Events, Future Trends, Lisa Randall, Meteor Shower, Meteors, WSJ Book Review
From: GL0CK – Depositphotos.com
Extinction is a fascinating subject to me as a writer, especially if it has a dystopian plot line around a group of humans barely surviving a decimated landscape from any one of natural or manmade calamities. It’s all about the human equation, but what makes it really compelling, is a natural disaster by which we have no control. I’m obsessed with The Apocalypse Waiting Beneath Our Feet, and other earth-based, regularly-scheduled natural disasters mentioned in an article I wrote a couple years ago. Not to say meteor impacts are passé, it’s been a hotly debated subject for decades, but I viewed heavenly body impacts as random events, like chances of winning the lottery (or in this case … losing).
My attitude changed when I read a recent book review by Jim Al-Khalili of the WSJ, The Science of Shooting Stars, which discusses a unique theory fostered by Harvard cosmologist, Lisa Randall, in her new book, Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs. You can get a synopsis of Randall’s book by following the Amazon the link provided, but since you have to be a subscriber to read Khalili’s review, I’ll highlight a few part parts that caught my interest.
Randall’s book suggests “there is persuasive evidence that large bodies have smashed into the Earth on a regular basis – every 20 million to 30 million years or so.”
Randall’s theory involves one of my favorite subjects, dark matter, as an influence for bolide events, geologic term for very large impactors, hitting the planet surface.
We’ve lots of cosmic garbage floating in three orbiting junkyards; the Asteroid Belt, Kuiper Belt, and the comet spawning Oort Cloud. You can see crater-sized acne on our own moon with the naked eye. Plenty of large body impact evidence in the neighborhood. I just didn’t think big chunks of it as candidates for regularly-scheduled impacts.
Al-Khalili’s review paraphrases Randall’s book with “the solar system wobbles up and down as it orbits round the center of our galaxy”, and “passes through a disk of dark matter every 20 or 30 million years“. In simple terms, the gravitational influences of this dark matter region of our galaxy, alters the forces keeping our planetary flotsam in stable orbits with each pass.
I checked out a current roster of extinction events and the last known impact blamed for a major extinction event was 64 million years ago. Reviewing the chronology of all known large body events, three major impacts are recorded between 34-35 million years ago, with one on the American continent about 11,000 years ago that killed millions, eradicated dozens of large mammal species, and considered by some to be responsible for Noah’s flood.
Does this mean we made it through the dark matter curtain Randall is researching unscathed? Kind of hard to tell when dealing with geologic time spans measuring in millions.
It’s given me a heightened respect for Einstein’s spooky action at a distance I mentioned in Quantum Field of Dreams, and wondering if the worst is yet to come. Hopefully we have a couple more thousand years to figure out how to deal with falling cosmic junk before it happens.
From: Bolide.ex
Meanwhile, check out the Bolides animation of the 45,000 meteorites that have fallen since 2500 BC. Is it my imagination, or has the action kicked up a notch after 1800 AD and still going strong?
Other Reviews and commentary of “Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs” can be found here.
A primer on Meteor Terminology, from amsmeteors.org.
D.T. Krippene 
Dan – thanks, great post!
Hey it was great seeing you guys a few weeks ago. In the future you may want to check ahead to see who the Studers might be dragging along with them!
Speaking of cataclysms, I saw saw below article on just that subject. Thought you’d be interested if you had not already seen.
Take care,
Phil
*NASA’s New ‘Armageddon Office’ Looks to Detect Catastrophic Asteroids*
Have no fear— if a day ever comes when an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth and Bruce Willis is nowhere to be found, we’ll be in good hands thanks to NASA’s new office.
The Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) will take the reigns of NASA’s current efforts to monitor near-Earth objects (NEO) and arrange with other nations and/or federal agencies if the time comes to prepare for impact.
NASA defines near-Earth objects as “comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighborhood”. Comets are normally formed in the cold outer planetary system, while asteroids are formed in the warmer inner solar system, somewhere between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
Of the 13,500 total NEOs detected so far, roughly 95% of them were discovered by NASA-funded surveys developed over 15 years ago, according to NASA.
Enlarge
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by Rosetta’s OSIRIS narrow-angle camera on August 3, 2014, from a distance of 177 miles (285 kilometers). (ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA)
Being that 90% of NEOs larger than 3,000 feet in diameter have been detected already, NASA’s now trying to raise the bar and find 90% of mid-sized objects (about 450 feet or larger) by 2020, according to ValueWalk.
Longtime NEO program executive Lindley Johnson will now be the lead program executive of the office, donning the title of Planetary Defense Officer.
“The formal establishment of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office makes it evident that the agency is committed to perform a leadership role in national and international efforts for detection of these natural impact hazards, and to be engaged in planning if there is a need for planetary defense,” said Johnson in a recent NASA release.
The PDCO is just another addition to NASA’s long-term defense goals to prevent a catastrophic impact. Other measures include utilizing the National Nuclear Security Administration to develop a plan to use nuclear weapons to intercept and deflect an asteroid , according to the New York Times.
Not only is the chance of a collision by an NEO highly unlikely—most cases will be false alarms—but the possibility of a collision will be known for several years in advance. The advanced notice will give experts a chance to use existing technology to deflect the threatening object.
However, if intervention isn’t a possibility, NASA would work to protect those most affected by an impact by preparing FEMA to assist emergency response operations.
“FEMA is dedicated to protecting against all hazards, and the launch of the coordination office will ensure early detection and warning capability, and will further enhance FEMA’s collaborative relationship with NASA,” FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate said in a NASA statement.
The Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii has in 2015 produced the most near-Earth object discoveries of the NASA-funded NEO.
For regular updates on passing asteroids, NASA has an asteroid widget that lists the next five close approaches to Earth; it links to the CNEOS website with a complete list of recent and upcoming close approaches, as well as all other data on the orbits of known NEOs, so scientists and members of the media and public can track information on known objects.
You can read more about it on JPL’s article: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2016-007
For more information on NASA’s Planetary Defense program and the PDCO, you can check it out at: https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense.
Thanks Phil. I think beers are on me for enlightening us on the above article.
Reblogged this on msamba.