The Cosmic Tusk

March 10, 2010

Antarctic Tunguska Blasts: Link trove from Heinrich

Paul Heinrich over at the Hall of Maat provides some fine links on the big cold bangs(s): Direct Links to “Tunguska type blast detected in Antartica” Papers and Articles Below are the direct links to the Antarctica Tunguska articles and papers: Articles are: Clues to Antarctica space blast by Paul Rincon BBC News, [news.bbc.co.uk] Antarctica May Have Been Battered by Huge…

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Random Tusks

March 10, 2010

New WISE space telescope finds nine dark comets -- and one black comet -- in six weeks

This is not breaking news, but rather a brief breakdown of information gleaned from David Shiga’s great New Scientist article last week regarding the findings of the recently launched WISE infrared space telescope. The information from the article, though unattributed, is presumably from the mission scientists themselves: In its first six weeks of observations, it has discovered 16…

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Random Tusks

March 9, 2010

The February 11 JPL Press Release on dark, dead comets and the WISE mission

Here’s the full press release about WISE mission finding dark comets. WISE spies a Comet With its Powerful Infrared Eye, NASAJet Propulsion Laboratory, Feb 11, 2010 NASAJPL–NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, has discovered its first comet, one of many the mission is expected to find among millions of other objects during its ongoing survey of the whole sky in…

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Random Tusks

March 9, 2010

Dead Car Special!: E.P. Grondine offering great book at great price

I am sorry to report that impact researcher, and friend to many on the internet, E.P. Grondine, has fallen on hard times. E.P. has had two calamities, a horrible stroke — and a career as a newspaper science writer. Which is not a popular vocation at the moment. If that’s not bad enough, his car “Betsy” has broken down and he is unable to repair it. What E.P. can do…

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Random Tusks

March 8, 2010

New Scientist: WISE mission finding yet more dark, dead comets predicted by Napier

Now visible comet from WISE in infrared In an earlier post I noted that last month NASA had mentioned WISE finding dark and dead comets for the first time (at least as recorded on the Internet). I thought it kind of odd that well into a mission the agency begins speaking of a dangerous phenomena that had not been previously and specifically identified as quarry for the Infrared Telescope. Mind…

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Random Tusks

March 8, 2010

Predictive paper: Nesvorny, Bottke, Vokrouhlicky used astronomy to predict Antarctic stratigraphy

David Nesvorny I might be pushing the publishing envelope here, but this Science paper was available at several locations on the web for free with no sign-in. For the time being it is now on Scribd: Therefore, a wave of micrometer sized Datura particles may have reached Earthonly a few thousand years after the formation of the Datura cluster. Signs of this event may be found by analyzing tracers…

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Random Tusks

March 8, 2010

Sterling Webb puts the pieces together: Antarctic airbursts independently predicted

Sterling K. Webb In February, 2006, SWRI published this paper in Science announcing the discovery of an new recent asteroid family associated with the asteroid 1270 Datura: http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~bottke/Reprints/Nesvorny_Vok_Bottke_Science_2006_Datura_breakup.pdf [Tusk will drop on Scribd] A summary of its conclusions: “The newly identified family is a group of six 1- to…

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Random Tusks

March 7, 2010

The paper: Antarctic Blast evidence

Numerical simulations show that stony meteorites with masses in the 10*8 to 10*11 kg range may undergo total disruption during atmospheric entry in the lower layers of the Earth’s atmosphere, in a similar manner to the Tunguska event that occurred over Siberia in 1908 [12]. Modelling also show that at a later stage of a Tunguska-like impact a plume of hot vapour and ablation debris is…

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Random Tusks

March 7, 2010

Bang: Ancient Antarctic Blast detected by University of Siena scientists

Big news from the recent Lunar and Planetary Conference at the Woodlands in Texas. A excited article from the BBC breaks the cool story. A large space rock may have exploded over Antarctica thousands of years ago, showering a large area with debris, according to new research. The evidence comes from accumulations of tiny meteoritic particles and a layer of extraterrestrial dust found in…

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Random Tusks

March 5, 2010

Viva la Verde! Just in pic of radioactive Mexican green clay

Click for larger image Melissa Scruggs of the U of Missouri gang kindly sent me this tantalizing taste of their recently reported find of a YD-start age radioactive green mat. She said they have A LOT of samples they are working through and should report their findings in April. Understandably, they chose to share only a single photo without much context before the results are published.

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The archives

Antarctic Tunguska Blasts: Link trove from Heinrich

New WISE space telescope finds nine dark comets -- and one black comet -- in six weeks

The February 11 JPL Press Release on dark, dead comets and the WISE mission

Dead Car Special!: E.P. Grondine offering great book at great price

New Scientist: WISE mission finding yet more dark, dead comets predicted by Napier

Predictive paper: Nesvorny, Bottke, Vokrouhlicky used astronomy to predict Antarctic stratigraphy

Sterling Webb puts the pieces together: Antarctic airbursts independently predicted

The paper: Antarctic Blast evidence

Bang: Ancient Antarctic Blast detected by University of Siena scientists

Viva la Verde! Just in pic of radioactive Mexican green clay

Archive

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Marc Young to Holden Thorp: Retract Sun et al.

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