Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of focus elements
- List of tables
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Principal units
- Part 1 Changing views and fundamental concepts
- Part 2 The inner solar system: rocky worlds
- Part 3 The giant planets, their satellites and their rings: worlds of liquid, ice and gas
- Part 4 Remnants of creation: small worlds in the solar system
- 12 Asteroids and meteorites
- 13 Colliding worlds
- 14 Comets
- 15 Beyond Neptune
- Part 5 Origin of the solar system and extrasolar planets
- Author index
- Subject index
13 - Colliding worlds
from Part 4 - Remnants of creation: small worlds in the solar system
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of focus elements
- List of tables
- Preface to the second edition
- Preface to the first edition
- Principal units
- Part 1 Changing views and fundamental concepts
- Part 2 The inner solar system: rocky worlds
- Part 3 The giant planets, their satellites and their rings: worlds of liquid, ice and gas
- Part 4 Remnants of creation: small worlds in the solar system
- 12 Asteroids and meteorites
- 13 Colliding worlds
- 14 Comets
- 15 Beyond Neptune
- Part 5 Origin of the solar system and extrasolar planets
- Author index
- Subject index
Summary
• At least 20 pieces of a comet hit Jupiter on 7 July 1992, producing explosive fireworks and dark scars that fascinated astronomers throughout the world.
• Some comets are on suicide missions to the Sun, diving into our star and being consumed by it.
• Most of the impact craters on the Earth disappeared long ago, but a few of the relatively recent ones have been located from space.
• An asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs when it hit the Earth 65 million years ago.
• If an asteroid or comet of about 10 kilometers in size hit the Earth, the horrific blast could generate overpowering ocean waves, block out the Sun's light and heat, ignite global wildfires, drench the land and sea with acid rain, and produce deadly volcanoes on the other side of the Earth.
• The Earth is immersed within a cosmic shooting gallery of potentially lethal, Earth-approaching asteroids that could collide with our planet and end civilization as we know it.
• The lifetime risk of your dying as the result of an asteroid striking the Earth is about the same as death from an airplane crash, but a lot more people would die with you during the cosmic impact.
• It is estimated that the Earth receives a direct hit by an asteroid about two kilometers in size every million years or so, resulting in a global catastrophe. […]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Guide to the Solar System , pp. 391 - 407Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011