Al-Jazeera: Egyptian 'top scientist' unearths comet-whacker's true mission

Hop David wrote:


The Chicxulub crater is much larger. Guestimates range from 90 miles
to 110 miles in diameter. Recall the article Pat cites says the Iraq
crater is about 2 miles in diameter.

The Chicxulub crater is about 31400 square miles vs 12.6 square miles
for the Iraq crater. The Iraqi meteor was no dino-killer or human
killer for that matter.

This is a fun website that lets you study the effects of varius size
meteor, asteroid and comet impacts on both the local enviroment and the
Earth as a whole: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
I worked out the data for a stony asteroid hitting the Earth at a
45degree angle that blows a two-mile-wide crater in sedimentry rock as
seen from 10 kilometers away:


Your Inputs:

Distance from Impact: 10.00 km = 6.21 miles
Projectile Diameter: 200.00 m = 656.00 ft = 0.12 miles
Projectile Density: 3000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 17.00 km/s = 10.56 miles/s
Impact Angle: 45 degrees
Target Density: 2500 kg/m3
Target Type: Sedimentary Rock


Energy:

Energy before atmospheric entry: 1.82 x 1018 Joules = 4.34 x 102
MegaTons TNT
The average interval between impacts of this size somewhere on Earth
during the last 4 billion years is 1.2 x 104years


Atmospheric Entry:

The projectile begins to breakup at an altitude of 54000 meters =
177000 ft
The projectile reaches the ground in a broken condition. The mass of
projectile strikes the surface at velocity 14.8 km/s = 9.19 miles/s
The impact energy is 1.38 x 1018 Joules = 3.29 x 102MegaTons.
The broken projectile fragments strike the ground in an ellipse of
dimension 0.847 km by 0.599 km



Crater Dimensions:

What does this mean?
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/%7Emarcus/craterexp.html#crater


Crater shape is normal in spite of atmospheric crushing; fragments
are not significantly dispersed.

Transient Crater
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/%7Emarcus/craterglos.html#transient
Diameter: 2.84 km = 1.76 miles
Transient Crater Depth: 1 km = 0.623 miles

Final Crater
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/%7Emarcus/craterglos.html#final
Diameter: 3.27 km = 2.03 miles
Final Crater Depth: 0.423 km = 0.262 miles

The crater formed is a complex crater
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/%7Emarcus/craterglos.html#complex.
The volume of the target melted or vaporized is 0.00867 km3 =
0.00208 miles3
Roughly half the melt remains in the crater


Thermal Radiation:

What does this mean?
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/%7Emarcus/craterexp.html#thermal


At this impact velocity ( 15 km/s), little vaporization
occurs; no fireball is created, therefore, there is no thermal
radiation damage.


Seismic Effects:

What does this mean?
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/%7Emarcus/craterexp.html#seismic


The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 2 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 6.3
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 10 km:

VII. Damage negligible in buildings of good design and
construction; slight to moderate in well-built ordinary
structures; considerable damage in poorly built or badly
designed structures; some chimneys broken.

VIII. Damage slight in specially designed structures;
considerable damage in ordinary substantial buildings with
partial collapse. Damage great in poorly built structures.
Fall of chimneys, factory stacks, columns, monuments,
walls. Heavy furniture overturned.


Ejecta:

What does this mean?
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/%7Emarcus/craterexp.html#ejecta


The ejecta will arrive approximately 45.2 seconds after the impact.
Average Ejecta Thickness: 57.9 cm = 22.8 inches
Mean Fragment Diameter: 8.91 m = 29.2 ft


Air Blast:

What does this mean?
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/%7Emarcus/craterexp.html#airblast


The air blast will arrive at approximately 30.3 seconds.
Peak Overpressu 315000 Pa = 3.15 bars = 44.8 psi
Max wind velocity: 386 m/s = 864 mph
Sound Intensity: 110 dB (May cause ear pain)
Damage Description:


Multistory wall-bearing buildings will collapse.

Wood frame buildings will almost completely collapse.

Multistory steel-framed office-type buildings will suffer
extreme frame distortion, incipient collapse.

Highway truss bridges will collapse.

Glass windows will shatter.

Cars and trucks will be overturned and displaced,
requiring major repairs.

Up to 90 percent of trees blown down; remainder stripped
of branches and leaves.


No, that doesn't sound survivable at 10 kilometers. Particularly the
thirty foot diameter rocks falling out of the sky and the supersonic
windspeed; let's back off to 50:


Seismic Effects:

What does this mean?
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/%7Emarcus/craterexp.html#seismic


The major seismic shaking will arrive at approximately 10 seconds.
Richter Scale Magnitude: 6.3
Mercalli Scale Intensity at a distance of 50 km:

VII. Damage negligible in buildings of good design and
construction; slight to moderate in well-built ordinary
structures; considerable damage in poorly built or badly
designed structures; some chimneys broken.

VIII. Damage slight in specially designed structures;
considerable damage in ordinary substantial buildings with
partial collapse. Damage great in poorly built structures.
Fall of chimneys, factory stacks, columns, monuments, walls.
Heavy furniture overturned.



Ejecta:

What does this mean?
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/%7Emarcus/craterexp.html#ejecta


The ejecta will arrive approximately 101 seconds after the impact.
At your position the ejecta arrives in scattered fragments
Average Ejecta Thickness: 4.63 mm = 0.182 inches
Mean Fragment Diameter: 12.5 cm = 4.93 inches



Air Blast:

What does this mean?
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/%7Emarcus/craterexp.html#airblast


The air blast will arrive at approximately 152 seconds.
Peak Overpressu 14400 Pa = 0.144 bars = 2.04 psi
Max wind velocity: 31.9 m/s = 71.4 mph
Sound Intensity: 83 dB (Loud as heavy traffic)
Damage Description:


Glass windows will shatter.

Now that sounds survivable, provided that you don't get clonked with one
of those five inch diameter rocks falling out of the sky.
But you are still going to realise that something very odd has happened
in the neighborhood.

Pat

Hop David wrote:



Pat Flannery wrote:



Damon Hill wrote:

We'll have to wait and see what comes of any investigations.
Was that string of impacts in South America ever dated?



Well, the whole impact scenario is now getting re-examined:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...meteorite.html

What makes the Iraq impact interesting is that something that sounds
very much like a meteorite impact shows up in The Book Of Revelations
in the Bible- Chapter 8:

(snip what sounds like a description of a big meteorite impact from
the Bible)

University of Arizona planetary scientist John S. Lewis has made a
similar observation. (See his book _Rain of Iron and Ice_)

He notes that, until recently, more educated, "knowledgeable" people
didn't believe rocks could fall from the sky. So any eyewitness
accounts of meteorites would've been categorized as myths or tall tales.

Lewis has searched scripture and mythology and found stuff that sounds
like impact descriptions. I buy his argument that at least some of
these stories are based on events that actually happened.

Although as I understand it, Revelation is supposed to be visions of
what is to come rather than things John saw on earth in his time. So
it seems unlikely John was giving an account of a meteorite impact.

Hop David wrote:


Although as I understand it, Revelation is supposed to be visions of
what is to come rather than things John saw on earth in his time. So
it seems unlikely John was giving an account of a meteorite impact.

He does seem to realize that flaming things can come falling out of the
sky though; and that might be some piece of knowledge he picked up in
his life, or heard stories about that were passed down from generation
to generation.
Whereas the one that hit Iraq made it through the atmosphere, around 90%
of the big stuff that hits the atmosphere explodes before impact, and if
you are lucky you will find fragments at best (remember, they still
haven't found any major fragments from the Tunguska blast)...so there
could have been quite a few hits like that in recorded history. If the
Tunguska blast had occurred over the middle of the Arabian Desert or in
the Australian Outback where there was no forest to be destroyed, would
there be any evidence of it left at all that would survive to the
present day?
If you are looking for something else in the Bible that sounds like a
bolide airblast annihilating something, you wouldn't have to go much
further than Sodom and Gomorrah. Genesis 19:

"24 Then the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire
from the LORD out of heaven;

25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the
inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.

26 But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of
salt.

27 And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood
before the LORD:

28 And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of
the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the
smoke of a furnace."

That's not quite as suggestive of a meteor impact as the description of
Mt. Sinai is of a volcano, particularly in the fact that there is a
lightning storm associated with whatever is going on, which is a common
feature of a volcanic eruption. Exodus 19 (hmm...both chapter 19...do we
have something numerological going on here?): =-O

"16 And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there
were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the
voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in
the camp trembled.

17 And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God;
and they stood at the nether part of the mount.

18 And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended
upon it in fi and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a
furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly."

And there are volcanoes in the region that have been active in
historical times, lying along the eastern shore of the Red Sea as you
leave Egypt. Some very good candidates for Mt. Sinai would be the Saudi
volcanos Harrat Ar Rahah, Harrat 'Uwayrid, Harrat Lunnayir, Harrat
Ithnayn, and Harrat Khaybar, as all are near the top of the Red Sea
where it might be possible to cross it under unusual conditions, and
assuming you head into Sinai you might bump into one of them:
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/region.cfm?rnum=0301
I'm still trying to get data on all the dates of their eruptions, as
that could narrow things down some, assuming that the whole Exodus story
really did occur around the time of the reign of Ramses II (c.1279-1213 BC):
Neumann van Padang thought it might be Harrat Ar Rahah:
http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/volc...?vnum=0301-01=

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:
Sorry about that; the computer seems to have had a nervous breakdown
over that posting, it keeps bringing it back up and trying to repost it.
:-[

Pat

Pat Flannery wrote:


Hop David wrote:


The Chicxulub crater is much larger. Guestimates range from 90 miles
to 110 miles in diameter. Recall the article Pat cites says the Iraq
crater is about 2 miles in diameter.

The Chicxulub crater is about 31400 square miles vs 12.6 square miles
for the Iraq crater. The Iraqi meteor was no dino-killer or human
killer for that matter.


This is a fun website that lets you study the effects of varius size
meteor, asteroid and comet impacts on both the local enviroment and the
Earth as a whole: http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/
I worked out the data for a stony asteroid hitting the Earth at a
45degree angle that blows a two-mile-wide crater in sedimentry rock as
seen from 10 kilometers away:


Your Inputs:

Distance from Impact: 10.00 km = 6.21 miles Projectile Diameter:
200.00 m = 656.00 ft = 0.12 miles Projectile Density: 3000 kg/m3
Impact Velocity: 17.00 km/s = 10.56 miles/s Impact Angle: 45 degrees
Target Density: 2500 kg/m3 Target Type: Sedimentary Rock

Energy:

Energy before atmospheric entry: 1.82 x 1018 Joules = 4.34 x 102
MegaTons TNT

A 434 MegaTon blast definitely makes for a Bad Day in that neighborhood.

But I don't think it'd be a global extinction event which is what I
meant by dino-killer or human-killer.



--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html