The brevity of an event is no guarantee that its effect will be slight or short-term.
The evidence that ties the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico to the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs provides us with a sense of what an incoming asteroid/comet can do to our planet. The impactor dug a big hole as much as 18 miles deep and up to 120 miles in diameter. In excavating, it released into the atmosphere over a trillion tons of carbon dioxide and somewhere between 200 and 450 billion tons of sulfur.* The short-term effects of the sulfur release was the formation of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, leading to the blocking of sunlight and acid rain. In a recent study of the area Joanna Morgan and other researchers re-examined the findings of a team led by Julia Brugger to estimate the effects of that day of death. According to Brugger’s team of scientists, our planet’s surface temperature could have dropped by almost 50 degrees Fahrenheit for more than a decade.** Now, today’s average surface temperature is about 57 degrees F. Think, now. That’s an average. Drop that average by 50 degrees and the dinosaurs couldn’t have purchased enough Gore-Tex from L.L. Bean to have survived. With sub-freezing temperatures for an average, much of the planet would have been a wintertime Siberia.
All that from an object that was only a thousandth of Earth’s diameter.
But the effect came fast, and that’s the same for all small objects with big consequences. And for many human activities.
Break a board with your hand ala karate style. You won’t punch slowly. F=MA. The asteroid/comet that hit Earth about 65 million years ago arrived at more than 11 miles per second.
The swift changes that seem to occur in the world of human behavior can crater lives with equal devastation. Look at any terrorist attack. In a moment lives change. Extinction occurs, and the world is different. One isolated event alters the lives of millions for years. The only difference between a bolide and a human impactor? Intention.
Both unconscious and conscious impactors make life on our planet risky. Both arrive unexpectedly and unexpectedly fast. That’s why on this website I reiterate, “This is not your practice life.”
*http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41825471
**https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/how-the-darkness-and-the-cold-killed-the-dinosaurs
The evidence that ties the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan Peninsula and the Gulf of Mexico to the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs provides us with a sense of what an incoming asteroid/comet can do to our planet. The impactor dug a big hole as much as 18 miles deep and up to 120 miles in diameter. In excavating, it released into the atmosphere over a trillion tons of carbon dioxide and somewhere between 200 and 450 billion tons of sulfur.* The short-term effects of the sulfur release was the formation of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, leading to the blocking of sunlight and acid rain. In a recent study of the area Joanna Morgan and other researchers re-examined the findings of a team led by Julia Brugger to estimate the effects of that day of death. According to Brugger’s team of scientists, our planet’s surface temperature could have dropped by almost 50 degrees Fahrenheit for more than a decade.** Now, today’s average surface temperature is about 57 degrees F. Think, now. That’s an average. Drop that average by 50 degrees and the dinosaurs couldn’t have purchased enough Gore-Tex from L.L. Bean to have survived. With sub-freezing temperatures for an average, much of the planet would have been a wintertime Siberia.
All that from an object that was only a thousandth of Earth’s diameter.
But the effect came fast, and that’s the same for all small objects with big consequences. And for many human activities.
Break a board with your hand ala karate style. You won’t punch slowly. F=MA. The asteroid/comet that hit Earth about 65 million years ago arrived at more than 11 miles per second.
The swift changes that seem to occur in the world of human behavior can crater lives with equal devastation. Look at any terrorist attack. In a moment lives change. Extinction occurs, and the world is different. One isolated event alters the lives of millions for years. The only difference between a bolide and a human impactor? Intention.
Both unconscious and conscious impactors make life on our planet risky. Both arrive unexpectedly and unexpectedly fast. That’s why on this website I reiterate, “This is not your practice life.”
*http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41825471
**https://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/how-the-darkness-and-the-cold-killed-the-dinosaurs
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