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Shoemaker-Levy 9, July 1994… Impacts Hitting Jupiter

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Shoemaker-Levy 9, July 1994… Impacts Hitting Jupiter Meteorite impacts Comparativ e energies No human in past 1,000 years has been killed by a meteorite Direct observations of meteorite impacts ❚ Tunguska, Siberia, 30 June 1908…a big bang above the Earth’s surface ❚ Shoemaker-Levy 9, July 1994… impacts hitting Jupiter Direct observations of meteorite impacts ❚ In 1954, a 5-kg meteorite crashed through a house in Alabama ❚ the object bounced off a radio and hit the owner in the head Effects upon children Indirect evidence of meteorite impacts ❚ Preserved craters on the continents, mainly the oldest parts (shields) ❚ Lac cratére in northern Québec is a simple crater… ❚ …its rim diameter is 3.4 km, it is 250 m deep, and it is 1.4 Ma in age Location map of some impact craters seen at the surface Lac cratère Meteor crater in Arizona is another simple crater showing rim ejecta Manicouagan ❚ The Manicouagan crater in Québec is a spectacular example of a complex crater ❚ Its original rim has been removed by erosion… the current diameter is 100 km ❚ It has an uplifted central core and outer rings, which are filled by a lake ❚ Its age - 210 Ma - coincides approximately with a large extinction at the end of the Triassic period Manicouagan St. Lawrence River Central uplift Some definitions ❚ Meteoroid: matter revolving around the Sun or any object in planetary space too small to be called an asteroid or a comet ❚ Meteorite: a meteoroid which reaches the surface of the Earth without being vaporized ❚ M eteorites come from larger parent bodies within our solar system Asteroids ❚ Asteroids are rocky fragments which either: ❚ failed to consolidate into a planet, or ❚ represent remnants of a fragmented planet Asteroids and the Asteroid Belt ❚ The Asteroid Belt lies between Mars and Jupiter…there are about 4,000 objects ❚ As asteroids collide with one another, they fragment and send pieces into near-Earth orbits Types of meteorites derived from asteroids ❚ Asteroids have a Metallic core metallic core and stony silicate mantle ❚ As asteroids fragment, both metallic and silicate pieces are produced S tony silicate mantle Stony meteorites (94% of all meteorites) ❚ Two types: Photo of a carbonaceous chondrite (carbon-bearing) ❚ Chondites… contain chondrules… they are very old and primitive ❚ Achondrites…no ch ondrules Iron meteorites ❚ These consist of nearly pure metallic nickel and iron ❚ This photo shows an iron meteorite named ARISPE Stony-iron meteorites ❚ These are a mixture of the previous two types ❚ Often they are fragmental, suggestive of violent processes ❚ T his stony-iron meteorite is named ESTHER Comets ❚ Comets come from the far reaches of the Solar System ❚ They have highly elongate, elliptical orbits which bring them close to the Sun ❚ They mainly consist of ice and dust, thus are referred to as “dirty icebergs” or “dirty snowballs” ❚ They are held together very loosely Comet West, 9 March 1976 Impact events ❚ 1. Probabilities ❚ 2. Nature of the event ❚ 3. Consequences ❚ 4. Mitigation 1. Probabilities of a collision ❚ What are the chances of a large meteorite hitting Earth? ❚ As of 2003, ~700 objects with diameters > 1 km known to have orbits which intersect that of Earth ❚ And 30 new objects are discovered e ach year, with the s earch only 8% complete! Probabilities - Zebrowski ❚ Zebrowski shows that, on average, collisions of 1 km- diameter objects occur every 250,000 years ❚ Such an impact is sufficient to wipe ou t most of the From Zebrowski (1997) human population Probabilities - Courtillot ❚ Is Zebrowski’s estimate too high? Courtillot suggests it is about 1 Ma between events ❚ In any case, you can see that these events are both very rare and v ery destructive From Courtillot (1999) Zebrowski vs. Courtillot ❚ The differences we see on the two graphs give you some idea of the uncertainties involved 2. Nature of the event ❚ Impact cratering is an important process in the history of Earth and other planets ❚ 107 to 109 kg of meteoritic flux strikes Earth each year, mostly in the form of dust Impact events ❚ The cratering process is very rapid ❚ Since the objects travel so fast (4-40 km/second), a huge amount of energy is transferred upon impact Cratering ❚ A blanket of ejecta is dispersed around the crater ❚ rock is fractured, crushed, and broken ❚ In large impact events, the rock can even be vaporized (depending on the type of rock) Cratering (continued) ❚ Very high pressures are reached, resulting in shock metamorphism (pressure-temperature increases) ❚ After the initial compression comes decompression, which may cause the rock to melt Broken rock Ejecta blanket fracturing Simple craters are basically simple bowls With time, the ejecta blanket outside the crater is eroded melt Central uplift Complex craters are generated by rebound of the central core This core, as it decompresses, may melt There are about 200 large, well-preserved impact craters worldwide…BUT…>>200 impact events during Earth’s history This map shows both SURFACE and SUB-S URFACE examples Surface examples Consequences of a large impact event ❚ These would apply for an object of about 1 km or larger ❚ Actually, you may not want to hear the list of death and destruction (or maybe you do)... Consequences 1 ❚ A base surge, similar to a volcanic pyroclastic flow, will be generated by the impact ❚ For a terrestrial impact, rock will be pulverized and/or vaporized, sending up huge amounts of dust into the stratosphe re Consequences 2 ❚ For an oceanic impact: ❚ huge amounts of water will be vaporized ❚ runaway hurricanes, called “hypercanes”, may be produced (winds to 1,000 km/hr?) ❚ Global tsunamis will be generated, which w ill ravage the Earth ’s coastlines Isabel, 18 September 2003 Consequences 3 ❚ In the short term, global wildfires will be generated by the impact event ❚ These fires will burn uncontrollably across the globe, sending more soot, dust, and gas into the stratosphere Consequences 4 ❚ All this suspended dust and soot will cause global winter and global darkness ❚ Acid rains will fall ❚ Crops will fail catastrophically ❚ T he end result will b e MASS EXTINCTIONS Consequences 5 ❚ One last interesting point: ❚ The impact likely will trigger devastating quakes around the globe, especially where tectonic stresses are high (i.e., plate margins) ❚ Volcanism (flood basalts) may occur on the opposite side of the globe from the i mpact, as a result o f shock waves travelling through the center of the Earth From Murck et al. (1996 ) Mitigation ❚ The problem is the possibility of little or no warning ❚ There are proposals to use nuclear weapons and satellites to “shoot down” or destroy such killer objects ❚ For further edification, rent “Armegeddon” from Blockbuster (1998) ❚ Good subject for a paper ! Three case studies ❚ Tunguska 1908, Russia ❚ Shoemaker-Levy 9, July 1994, Jupiter ❚ The Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction, 65 Ma Tunguska, Russia, 30 June 1908 ❚ Something big Aerial view of Tunguska Natural Reserve seems to have exploded in the atmosphere ❚ The exact cause is uncertain, but we suspect a comet or a meteor What happened? ❚ The object’s Tree blowdown from the explosions; entry appeared Note parallel alignment of the trees to be at an angle of 30-35° ❚ The object shattered in a series of explosions at about 8 km al titude Big fires ❚ In the central region, forests flashed to fires which burned for weeks ❚ a herd of 600- 700 reindeer was incinerated Aligned trees ❚ Trees were felled in a radial sense ❚ About 2,000 km2 were flattened by the blasts What happened? ❚ Our best scientific Felled trees aligned parallel to each guess is that it was other part of a comet 20- 60 meters in diameter… ❚ …no crater was found… ❚ …and no m eteoritic debris has been found Area of devastation superimposed on a map or Rome. Yellow=charred trees; Green=felled trees ❚ The lack of a crater suggests disintegration above the surface of the Earth ❚ The lack of solid debris implies a co met rather than an asteroid A global view ❚ Soot from the fires circled the globe, producing spectacular sunrises and sunsets for months afterward ❚ The Tunguska event was the largest known comet/asteroid event in the history of civilization Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9, July 1994 Hubble image, ❚ This comet was first detected 1 July 1993 on 24 March 1993 ❚ It was broken apart by a close pass to Jupiter on 7 July 19 92 The sequence of events ❚ The collision of the comet with Jupiter occurred over several days, 16-22 July 1994 ❚ It was the first collision of 2 solar system bodies ever observed ❚ At least 20 fragments hit Jupiter at speeds of 60 km/s econd Sizes of fragments ❚ The largest fragments were about 2 km in diameter ❚ Huge plumes thousands of km high were generated ❚ Comparisons can be made with the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event Multiple impacts Energies ❚ Fragment A struck with energy equivalent to 225,000 megatons of TNT, the plume rising to 1000 km ❚ Fragment G was the biggie, with 6,000,000 megatons TNT energy and a plume rising to 3,000 km ❚ Fragment G (and K, L) created dark impact sites whose diameters were at l east that of Earth’s radius Fragment G ❚ This image shows a ring of hot gas about 33,000 km in diameter and expanding at 4 km/second from the impact of fragment G Fragment G impacting; observe four things: ❚ 1) thin dark ring: atmospheric shock wave from fragment explosion below cloud tops ❚ 2) dark streak within ring: path of fragment ❚ 3) broad oval feature: ejecta blanket ❚ 4 ) small black dot: im pact site of fragment D a day earlier Fragment G Fragment G Shock wave Impact site of Path of fragment D fragment G Oval-shaped
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