[meteorite-list] Japanese immpact animation video

From: Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Jul 6 05:52:37 2006
Message-ID: <006a01c6a0e1$e4657d20$bc2ae146_at_ATARIENGINE>

Hi, All,


    This is a nice 7:32 min/sec video of the ultimate
impact disaster; they picked the worst possible
case and had fun with it.
    It models the impact of a 600-to-900 kilometer
object, the size of 1 Ceres, the biggest minor planet,
hitting at 70 km/sec, just short of the highest possible
velocity for a solar system object (73.4 km/sec).
There is, of course, no object in the solar system
at the present time that could do that, but they
wanted all the drama they could get, I guess...
    What you get is the Mother of All Impacts, breaks
through the Earth's crust, boils the oceans away,
creates a rock vapor atmosphere with a 2500 degree
ambient temperature. It's not my idea of a good time.
    In fact, the disaster they choose to represent
is far worse than what they show, especially in that
a rock vapor atmosphere with a 2500 degree ambient
temperature is both opaque and reflective, not
transparent. You can't film through it!
    The end of all life, they say, although the Earth has
been through impacts like that, in its formation time.
A few weeks after the impact, the rock vapor condenses
and is replaced with a steam atmosphere, which IS
transparent and cools quickly; it starts to rain right
away, and the oceans return.
    EVERY living thing on Earth has the 16S ribosome
in its genome, and this has been advanced as proof that
all life is descended from "Survivor" microbes living
in hot oceanic vents and metabolizing sulfur, a likely
scenario for life surviving a giant impact like this one.
    I got that gene; you got that gene; and yet we haven't
eaten sufur for, well, a really long time... But we could,
if we had to do, I suppose. My late mother's grandmother
used to make her, when she was a child, in the 1910's,
eat a teaspoon of sulfur followed by a spoon of molasses
once a year, every spring, as a tonic. Very picturesque,
I know, but it proves you can metabolize sulfur without
harm; my mother lived to the age of 94.
    Worth the watch (only if you got broadband). I suggest
you read the translation of the Japanese narration before
you view it.
    Thanks, Svend.


Sterling K. Webb
--------------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: <info_at_niger-meteorite-recon.de>
To: <Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2006 2:22 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Japanese immpact animation video


> in case this did not yet show up here recently here is the link to a
> Japanese impact animation video:
>
> http://www.ursispaltenstein.ch/blog/weblog.php?/weblog/meteorite_collision/
>
> best regards
>
> Svend
>
> www.niger-meteorite-recon.de
>
Received on Thu 06 Jul 2006 05:52:27 AM PDT