[kj] ASTEROOIDD!

[bongo]

that NZ author... um... thingy... he went into it in detail in one of
his books... 'Harmonic 33'  faaaarkin cool idea's, doubt its correct
tho...

=)

(no time to go into detail... 5 min left online at cafe!)


On 6/30/08, Brendan Quinn <bq at soundgardener.co.nz> wrote:

> Yeah well known amongst conspiracy theorists, various whacky theories like

> UFOs, secret weapons of the soviets being tested etc, in reality it's far

> more consistent with a rocky / icy body exploding in the air and sending a

> shockwave down.

>

> I'm not too sure about the reporting in that Yahoo article, the Wiki article

> does mention some mineral deposits in the area consistent with a meteorite:

>

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

>

>

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

> From: gathering-bounces at misera.net [mailto:gathering-bounces at misera.net] On

> Behalf Of B. Oliver Sheppard

> Sent: Monday, 30 June 2008 5:14 a.m.

> To: A list about all things Killing Joke (the band!)

> Subject: [kj] ASTEROOIDD!

>

> [Weird. I'd never heard of this. - Oliver]

>

>

> http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080629/sc_afp/sciencespaceimpacttunguska

>

>

>  100 years on, mystery shrouds massive 'cosmic impact' in Russia

>

> by Richard Ingham/

> Sun Jun 29, 3:20 AM ET/

>

> A hundred years ago this week, a gigantic explosion ripped open the dawn

> sky above the swampy taiga forest of western Siberia, leaving a

> scientific riddle that endures to this day.

>

> A dazzling light pierced the heavens, preceding a shock wave with the

> power of a thousand atomic bombs which flattened 80 million trees in a

> swathe of more than 2,000 square kilometres (800 square miles).

>

> Evenki nomads recounted how the blast tossed homes and animals into the

> air. In Irkutsk, 1,500 kilometres (950 miles) away, seismic sensors

> registered what was initially deemed to be an earthquake. The fireball

> was so great that a day later, Londoners could read their newspapers

> under the night sky.

>

> What caused the so-called Tunguska Event, named after the Podkamennaya

> Tunguska river near where it happened, has spawned at least a half a

> dozen theories.

>

> The biggest finger of blame points at a rogue rock whose destiny, after

> travelling in space for millions of years, was to intersect with Earth

> at exactly 7:17 am on June 30, 1908.

>

> Even the most ardent defenders of the sudden impact theory acknowledge

> there are many gaps. They strive to find answers, believing this will

> strengthen defences against future Tunguska-type threats, which experts

> say occur with an average frequency from one in 200 years to one in

> 1,000 years.

>

> "Imagine an unspotted asteroid laying waste to a significant chunk of

> land... and imagine if that area, unlike Tunguska and a surprising

> amount of the globe today, were populated," the British science journal

> Nature commented last week.

>

> If a rock was the culprit, the choices lie between an asteroid -- the

> rubble that can be jostled out of its orbital belt between Mars and

> Jupiter and set on collision course with Earth -- and a comet, one of

> the "icy dirtballs" of frozen, primeval material that loop around the

> Solar System.

>

> Comets move at far greater speeds than asteroids, which means they

> release more kinetic energy pound-for-pound upon impact. A small comet

> would deliver the same punch as a larger asteroid.

>

> But no fragments of the Tunguska villain have ever been found, despite

> many searches.

>

> Finding a piece is important, for it will boost our knowledge about the

> degrees of risk from dangerous Near Earth Objects (NEOs), say Italian

> researchers Luca Gasperini, Enrico Bonatti and Giuseppe Longo.

>

> When a new asteroid is detected, its orbit can be plotted for scores of

> years in the future.

>

> Comets are far less numerous than asteroids but are rather more

> worrying, as they are largely an unknown entity.

>

> Most comets have yet to be spotted because they take decades or even

> hundreds of years to go around the Sun and pass our home. As a result,

> any comet on a collision course with Earth could quite literally come

> out of the dark, leaving us negligible time to respond.

>

> "(I)f the Tunguska event was in fact caused by a comet, it would be a

> unique occurrence rather than an important case study of a known class

> of phenomena," Gasperini's team write in this month's issue of

> Scientific American.

>

> "On the other hand, if an asteroid did explode in the Siberian skies

> that June morning, why has no-one yet found fragments?"

>

> NEO experts are likewise unsure about the size of the object.

>

> Estimates, based on the scale of ground destruction, range from three

> metres (10 feet) to 70 metres (227 feet).

>

> All agree that the object, heated by friction with atmospheric

> molecules, exploded far above ground -- between several kilometres

> (miles) and 10 kms (six miles).

>

> But there is fierce debate as to whether any debris hit the ground.

>

> This too is important. When the next Tunguska NEO looms, Earth's

> guardians will have to choose whether to try to deflect it or blow it up

> in space, with the risk that objects of a certain size may survive the

> fiery passage through the atmosphere and hit the planet.

>

> The Italian trio believe the answers lie in a curiously-shaped oval

> lake, called Lake Cheko, located about 10 kilometres (six miles) from

> ground zero.

>

> Computer models, they say, suggest it is the impact crater from a metre-

> (three-feet) -sized fragment that survived the explosion.

>

> They plan a return expedition to Lake Cheko in the hope of reaching a

> dense object of this size, buried 10 metres (32.5 feet) in the lake's

> cone-shaped floor, that reflected sonar waves.

>

> But what if neither comet nor asteroid were to blame?

>

> A rival theory is given an airing in this week's New Scientist.

>

> Lake Cheko does not have the typical round shape of an impact crater,

> and no extraterrestrial material has been found, which means "there's

> got to be a terrestrial explanation," Wolfgang Kundt, a physicist at

> Germany's Bonn University told the British weekly.

>

> He believes the Tunguska Event was caused by a massive escape of 10

> million tonnes of methane-rich gas deep within Earth's crust. Evidence

> of a similar apocalyptic release can be found on the Blake Ridge on the

> seabed off Norway, a "pockmark" of 700 sq. kms (280 sq. miles), Kundt said.

>

> Copyright (c) 2008 Agence France Presse

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"due to a lack of trained trumpeters, the end of the world has been
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