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Since the
early days of the solar system forming, the planets have been bombarded
by meteors, asteroids, and other space debris. There is a theory that
the moon was created by such an impact millions of years ago. It says
that when the earth was just forming something crashed into the forming
planet causing a huge chunk to break off. That huge chunk formed the moon.
We are such a small target in space, but collisions have happened
and will happen again in the future. Don't think it is possible?
Well just keep reading, and remember to keep an open mind.
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(Click the picture for a larger view, at Astronomy Picture of the Day)
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The picture is of Barringer Meteor Crater located near Winslow, Arizona. The crater was formed nearly 50,000 years ago when an iron meteor approximately 45 meters in diameter collided with the Earth. The crater that was created by the impact is 1200 meters in diameter and it is 200 meters deep.
However this is not the only known crater, in fact there are around 120 craters that have been identified so far.
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Meteors, asteroids and comets are out there and at anytime one could be on a collision course with Earth. In 1992 three scientists found a comet that they named Shoemaker-Levy 9, after themselves (Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy). The scientific commmunity watched as over 2 years the comet broke into 21 pieces and each had a collision course with Jupiter. On July 16, 1994 the first of the 21 pieces collided with the massive planet over the next 7 days the comets fragments crashed into Jupiter. As the comet fagments crashed into Jupiter they caused explosions that ranged from approximately 250,000 Megatons of TNT to 6,000,000 megatons (which is about 600 times the world's arsenal). Such an explosion on Earth would literally wipe man off the face of the map.
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Over 65 million years ago a giant meteor smashed into the Gulf of Mexico.
When the impact occurred it may very well have been the event
that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. According to my
sources over 70% of all life on Earth was killed. The meteor was approximately 10 km (6 mi.) in diameter and moving at a speed close to 15 km/sec (9 mi/sec). The impact created a gaint exlosion which caused such destruction we can only imagine.
Because some animals survived life went on to how it is today.
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