[Archport] Fwd: Scientists Say Comet Smashed Into Southern Germany In 200 BC

[Graca Cravinho <graca@hermite.cii.fc.ul.pt>]

Title: Fwd: Scientists Say Comet Smashed Into Southern Germany In

>
> Scientists Say Comet Smashed Into Southern Germany
> In 200 BC
>
> http://www.spacedaily.com/news/comet-04l.html
>
> The
> largest crater in the Chiemgau field in Bavaria is water-filled
> Tuttensee, located near the village of Marwang. At the water surface,
> Tüttensee measures 1,200 feet across. but the original crater may
> have been twice as large. Photo credit: Chiemgau Impact Research
> Team.Paris (AFP) Oct 15, 2004
> A comet or asteroid smashed into modern-day Germany some 2,200 years
> ago, unleashing energy equivalent to thousands of atomic bombs,
> scientists reported on Friday.
>
> The 1.1-kilometre (0.7-mile) diameter rock wacked into southeastern
> Bavaria, leaving an "exceptional field" of meteorites and
> impact craters that stretch from the town of Altoetting to an area
> around Lake Chiemsee, the scientists said in an article in the latest
> issue of US magazine Astronomy.
>
> Colliding with the Earth's atmosphere at more than 43,000 kmsmiles per
> hour, the space rock probably broke up at an altitude of 70 kmsmiles),
> they believe.
>
> The biggest chunk smashed into the ground with a force equivalent to
> 106 million tonnes of TNT, or 8,500 Hiroshima bombs.
>
> "The forest beneath the blast would have ignited suddenly,
> burning until the impact's blast wave shut down the conflagration,"
> the investigators said.
>
> "Dust may have been blown into the stratosphere, where it would
> have been transported around the globe easily... The region must have
> been devastated for decades."
>
> The biggest crater is now a circular lake called Tuettensee, measuring
> 370 metres (1,200 feet) across. Scores of smaller craters and other
> meteorite impacts can be spotted in an elliptical field, inflicted by
> other debris.
>
> The study was carried out by the Chiemgau Impact Research Team, whose
> five members included a mineralogist, a geologist and an
> astronomer.
>
> It was sparked by a find in 2000 by amateur archaeologists who were
> digging in the area around Lake Chiemsee and found pieces of metal
> containing minerals not previously seen in the region.
>
> Aerial infrared photography established that the distinctive holes in
> the local countryside had the characteristic round form and
> "clear uplifted rim" of an impact crater, the Astronomy
> report said.
>
> Minerals ejected around the crater were found by geological analysis
> to be gupeiite and xifengite, iron-silicon alloys that were also found
> in meteorites recovered in China and Antarctica.
>
> Additional evidence comes from local discoveries of Celtic artefacts,
> which appear to have been scorched on one side.
>
> That helped to establish an approximate date for the impact of between
> 480 and 30 BC.
>
> The figure may be fine-tuned to around 200 BC, thanks to tree-ring
> evidence from preserved Irish oaks, which show a slowing in growth
> around 207 BC.
>
> This may have been caused by a veil of dust kicked up the impact,
> which filtered out sunlight.
>
> In addition, Roman authors at about the same time wrote about showers
> of stones falling from the skies and terrifying the populace.
>
> The object is more likely to have been a comet than an asteroid, given
> the length of the ellipse and scattered debris, the report says.
>
> Comets, which race in long orbits around the solar system, are
> believed to be loose assemblies of rubble held together with an ice
> rich in methane, ammonia and water.
>
> Asteroids are believed to be denser, more structured rocks. They
> mainly orbit in a band between Jupiter and Mars, but they can be
> deflected off course and put on the same trajectory as Earth, an event
> that is extremely rare but has the potential for a catastrophe.
>
> The long reign of the dinosaurs was put to an end by climate change
> some 65 million years ago, inflicted by a massive space rock impact in
> what is now modern-day Mexico.
> In
> 1908, a comet or asteroid exploided over Tunguska, Siberia, flattening
> the forest for hundreds of square kilometres
> around.