Note: this topic is from 25 August 2005. Thanks Our_Man_In_Gough_Island.
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Posted on 08/26/2005 7:00:38 AM PDT by Our_Man_In_Gough_Island
AN asteroid the size of a house that exploded with the power of an atom bomb over Antarctica last year may help scientists prepare for the entrance of larger bodies into the Earth's atmosphere.
The 1000-tonne asteroid crashed to Earth in millions of pieces last September, 900km from the nearest humans at Japan's Syowa station.
A trail of dust recorded by a physicist 1500km away at Australia's Davis station shows that if the asteroid had not fragmented into tiny pieces when it hit the Earth's atmosphere, it would have had an impact similar to the bombing of Hiroshima.
Dr Andrew Klekociuk, from the Australian Antarctic Division, said today the event helped scientists prepare for the effects of a larger asteroid hitting the Earth.
"This is just one event and it's the first one to be seen in any detail so we're not sure if it's typical of large meteoroids," he said.
The 10m-wide asteroid – part of the "potentially hazardous" Aten group orbiting between Venus and Earth – is the largest body to enter the Earth's atmosphere in a decade.
An international effort is underway to track asteroids larger than 1km in size, which could bring "global devastation".
The timing and location of last year's event will be used to test theories relating to the impact of large meteorites on ozone and climate.
Dr Klekociuk said the findings from the latest crash, published in today's Nature journal, were more significant to climate studies.
He said Australian physicist Joseph Zagari discovered the asteroid's dust trail "quite by accident" when he was making atmospheric observations.
Mr Zagari initially thought the trail was a fault in his instrument but the crash was later confirmed by US defence satellites.
Particles contained in the dust cloud have been collected from all three Australian Antarctic stations – Davis, Mawson and Casey – and will be used to validate models of atmospheric circulation.
"We're modelling in more detail the climate-related effects that this body might have," he said.
Penguins = Antarctic critter
Polar Bears = Arctic critter
Touche'
It was 6am when I posted, coffee hadn't kicked in yet ;)
There are all kinds of things the MSM doesn't report. If the story doesn't happen in their regular " beat" and they don't have an office nearby, it doesn't get written up. Remember when the tropical storm hit Houston and did $ 1 billion of flooding? That was not reported in the MSM for weeks, at least not on the front pages. Did you know ***before*** 9/11 that there was this guy Bin Laden with several divisions of Arabs in Afghanistan in training against the USA? Yet there are non-MSM links up before 9/11 that reported that fact. One reason I take the screen name I do is that I hope, from time to time, to be able to bring to better light some of the news items in very remote areas that are nevertheless quite startling.
Yes, this is a legit news story. The Sydney Morning Herald and Science Magazine are reporting it, too. Unfortunately, many of the articles so far are subscription only. Nevertheless, I will post the search output from Google News, and you may have better luck in accessing these: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=nz&ie=ISO-8859-1&ncl=http://www.themercury.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16387758%25255E3462,00.html
Thank you, everybody, for the feedback.
Where is Gough Island? Is there a Ginger and Mary Ann?......
It's near...well, let me see, it's - actually, it really isn't " near" anything. It is a very isolated island in the middle of the South Atlantic.
Anywhere in relation to Chatham Island or the International Dateline?.........
No, South Atlantic, not South Pacific.
The only answer is to place a ban on all asteroids immediately.
"Penguins and Polar bears hit hardest"
Not to be weird, but the thing hit Antarctica. The word "Arctic" means bear; the area was named after polar bears. Antarctica means "no bears". Trivial little fact courtesty of Dan Brown, 'Deception Point'.
Thanks. Any place with a vanishing island for a neighbor can't be all bad.
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“Penguins and Polar bears hit hardest”
Hope Sidney Crosby is ok?
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