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#1 2004-04-12 12:15:19
- Palomar
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- From: USA
- Registered: 2002-05-30
- Posts: 9,734
Re: Catastrophe Calculator
[http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/m … 40412.html]Click
*Picking on California again. :-\ Anyway, interesting article.
"The global effects of an asteroid impact are harder to predict. Many scientists think the larger impacts throw so much dust into the atmosphere that a global winter would ensue, lasting for months or years. Melosh is skeptical about the dust.
'Nuclear explosions are good at raising dust that's already there, but they're not good at creating it,' Melosh said. He figures most of the ejected material is melted and then hardens into tiny, hardened and almost microscopic spheres. 'Most of the ejecta comes down within an hour.' He calls the massive dust creation 'a media myth.'"
Link to Impact Effects program is at the bottom of the article. Have "fun." 
--Cindy
::EDIT:: I just clicked over to Yahoo! to access my e-mail account, and saw the same article on their front-page news (Science). Each news section is allowed only one headline on the front page, so this must be "popular."
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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#2 2004-04-12 12:32:21
- SBird
- Banned
- Registered: 2004-03-10
- Posts: 490
Re: Catastrophe Calculator
This simulator (which is also mentioned in the Blowing things up thread over in Sci/Tech) is great fun. If you start putting in really big values (a 100 km asteroid is good for this), the results you get are amusing in a gallows humor sort of way.
The most amusing part, IMO, is the 'ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY' disclaimer at the bottom of the page.
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#3 2004-04-12 15:19:05
- Palomar
- Member
- From: USA
- Registered: 2002-05-30
- Posts: 9,734
Re: Catastrophe Calculator
This simulator (which is also mentioned in the Blowing things up thread over in Sci/Tech)
*Whoops...sorry everyone. I didn't see that thread. It wasn't my intention to duplicate something previously posted. 
This sure is Monday...
--Cindy
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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