[meteorite-list] Another awful meteorite-related TV event

[lebofsky at lpl.arizona.edu]

Hi Sterling:

Sounds more reasonable, if destroying everything is reasonable.

Any idea how often these occur? This is 5 times the diameter of either
Sudbury or Vredefort and these are more than a billion years old.

Maybe this is big enough to punch through the mantle and bury itself in
magma.


Larry



> Hi, Larry, List,

>

> Yes, I am WRONG! However, my mistake was not the

> one you hypothesized. The Wikipedia gives mass in

> kilograms and I reduced the quantity by 1000 to

> convert it to tons (10^18 kg = 10^15 metric tons),

> correctly.

>

> No, it was density. I think in grams per cubic centimeter

> when I think density. Water = 1.0, rock = 2.5, and

> so forth. The training is strong; one thinks in specific

> density. But the online Calculator wants kilograms

> per cubic meter, where water = 1000, rock = 2500, and

> so forth.

>

> So I calculated the impact of a 100 kilometer diameter

> SNOWFLAKE ! One with a specific density of about

> 0.022, a little fat for a snowflake, actually... So, if you

> ever want to know what impact a really big snowflake

> would have, you've got it now.

>

> The actual figures? The energy is 304,000,000,000

> megatons. The crater is 1240 km (770 miles) across

> and would be 2500 meters deep before it fills with

> melt. The impact would melt 2,000,000 CUBIC MILES

> of the Earth's crust, and the melt zone extends to a

> depth of 35 kilometers, which in some places would

> take it down into the mantle itself, and it would

> certainly rebound and produce basalt flooding of

> incomprehensible magnitude, likely enough to flood

> and re-surface an entire continent. The "crater"

> would be a complex multi-ringed basin about the

> same size as the Moon's Mare Imbrium!

>

> Big enough for you now?

>

> This is a continent destroyer. The shock of the impact,

> would be a world-wide Richter Scale 12.3, strong enough

> to kill all animal life. The wind at the antipodeal point to

> the impact would be 385 mph. At just a quarter of the way

> around the planet (10,000 km away), the winds would

> be 835 mph.

>

> The fireball of the impact would be over 300 kilometers

> in diameter (190 miles) and it would be visible for 5570

> kilometers (3500 miles). The thermal flux would be 53

> times brighter than the Sun and everything organic within

> the line of sight would combust. This fireball would persist

> for nearly 8 hours (7 hours 42 minutes) before cooling

> enough to collapse. The shock wave there (3500 miles

> away) would be over 2000 mph, or about Mach 3.

>

> Major extinction event, clearly.

>

> I can't speak to the roaches; no one knows what it takes

> to wipe them out, if indeed it's even possible. Still, at

> the worst, the sulfur-eating thermophiles in the deep

> vents would survive just fine, fat and happy, and they

> could start this evolution thing all over again, something

> they've probably had to do before, as the universal inclusion

> of the 16S rna ribosome in most living things attests to.

>

> A little better?

>

>

> Sterling K. Webb

> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> ----- Original Message -----

> From: <lebofsky at lpl.arizona.edu>

> To: "Sterling K. Webb" <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net>

> Cc: <cynapse at charter.net>; "Meteorite List"

> <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>

> Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 9:03 PM

> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Another awful meteorite-related TV event

>

>

>> Hi Sterling:

>>

>> I will admit that, at first, I got the wrong asteroid (though now more

>> interesting composition) and I am never one to say you are wrong,

>> but...

>>

>> YOU ARE WRONG!!!!!

>>

>> Sorry, that felt good!

>>

>> If you go by Wikipedia, you lost 3 zeros 1x10^18 bit 1X10^15. It would

>> be

>> had to believe that a 100-km diameter object (give or take) would make

>> a

>> 40-km hole in the ground unless it was going real slow and hit a

>> really

>> hard surface.

>>

>> Somthing that big would probably make a hole 1000 km or so across (at

>> least), which would make it a bad day even for the roaches.

>>

>> Oh, did I forget to mention:

>>

>> You are wrong! It is a rare day that I get to say that to you

>> Sterling,

>> sorry.

>>

>> Larry

>>

>>> Hi, List,

>>>

>>> To quantify that impact, I went and ran the numbers

>>> through the online Impact Calculator that uses the

>>> Jay Melosh model:

>>> http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

>>>

>>> If 216 Kleopatra is 220 km x 100 km x 100 km, its

>>> volume is 17,278,875.96 km^3 or a total of (take a

>>> deep breath) 1,778,875,960,000,000 m^3. That's

>>> 1.7 quadrillion cubic meters and its mass would be at

>>> least 3.5 quadrillion metric tons. (Dogbone and Potato

>>> asteroids have lots of voids and a high porosity.)

>>>

>>> No, wait! It's 114 Kassandra? Get your Apocalypses

>>> straight, people!

>>>

>>> The volume of 114 Kassandra is less than Kleopatra:

>>> 523,598,644,700,000 cubic meters. The mass of

>>> 114 Kassandra, if rock, has to be at a minimum of

>>> 1,500,000,000,000,000 tons, although some sources

>>> say it's only 1,000,000,000,000,000. That big number

>>> is a Quadrillion tons, in case you want to know.

>>>

>>> OK, it's Kassandra! Smaller, lighter. Really puny.

>>> I gave it an intercept velocity of 47 km/s, a little

>>> slow for an eccentric orbit from the Asteroid Zone,

>>> and an incidence angle of 45 degrees.

>>>

>>> The energy of the collision is  1.20 x 10^24 Joules

>>> or 268,000,000 MegaTons TNT. The Calculator says

>>> "The average interval between impacts of this size

>>> somewhere on Earth during the last 4 billion years

>>> is 360,000,000 years."

>>>

>>> That energy is the equivalent of an explosion created

>>> by detonating a nuclear arsenal 1800 times bigger

>>> than the entire nuclear arsenals of all the nations of

>>> the world -- at once.

>>>

>>> The final crater diameter is 39.5 km or 24.5 miles;

>>> its final depth is 0.895 km or 0.556 miles. That seems

>>> oddly small for something so big. Why is that? Well,

>>> the Calculator says that the final crater is replaced

>>> by a large, circular melt province. The volume of the

>>> target melted or vaporized is 6410 cubic km or 1540

>>> cubic miles. The melt volume is 2.87 times the

>>> crater volume

>>>

>>> If 114 Kassandra hit Los Angeles, you'd probably be

>>> alright (for a while) if you were in New York City (or

>>> Boston). You'd be alright, that is, if you can withstand

>>> the shock wave which, at that distance, would have

>>> a wind velocity of 140 mph, or a hurricane-level

>>> Force Nine Gale on the Beaufort Scale. Where I live,

>>> it'll be over 205 mph.

>>>

>>> The real problem, I suspect, is in the vaporization of

>>> a substantial percentage of that "melt province." If

>>> 10% of the rock vaporized, or 1.5 trillion tons of rock

>>> vapor would be distributed very quickly through the

>>> atmosphere at temperatures of more than 2000

>>> degrees F. That quantity of rock vapor amounts to

>>> about 20,000 tons of rock vapor per square mile

>>> of the Earth's surface.

>>>

>>> The Impact Calculator does not discuss the contribution

>>> of the asteroid to the mass of rock vapor. I would suggest

>>> that at least 1% of it would survive as "mere" rock vapor

>>> (instead of plasma) -- that's an additional ten trillion tons,

>>> raising the distribution to 110,000 tons of rock vapor per

>>> square mile of the Earth's surface (about 190,000,000

>>> square miles).

>>>

>>> I suggest a very study, fireproofed umbrella would

>>> be a good idea if you plan on going out...

>>>

>>> This is an impact at least 30 to 50 times worse than

>>> the Chicxulub Impact which, it has been suggested,

>>> burned most of the vegetation off the planet with its

>>> rock vapor plume. 114 Kassandra's effect could only

>>> be characterized as the "Krispy Kritter" impact.

>>>

>>> It sounds like a a lousy environment in which to

>>> stage a mini-series. But... That's Entertainment!

>>>

>>>

>>>

>>> Sterling K. Webb

>>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------

>>> ------ Original Message -----

>>> From: <lebofsky at lpl.arizona.edu>

>>> To: <MeteorHntr at aol.com>

>>> Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>

>>> Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 12:03 PM

>>> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Another awful meteorite-related TV

>>> event

>>>

>>>

>>> If Kleopatra were to hit the Earth (at least that is what I get out

>>> of

>>> the

>>> main page), we would be in big trouble. For those of you who do not

>>> remember, 216 Kleopatra, thanks to radar observations, looks very

>>> much

>>> like a big dog bone, 220 kilometers long and 100 kilometers across.

>>>

>>> Larry

>>>

>>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>>> ----- Original Message -----

>>> From: "Darren Garrison" <cynapse at charter.net>

>>> To: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>

>>> Sent: Wednesday, July 01, 2009 11:38 AM

>>> Subject: [meteorite-list] Another awful meteorite-related TV event

>>>

>>>

>>>> http://www.movieweb.com/news/NEn3LrswY8Zyro

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>>

>>

>