Dinosaur-killing space rock 'was a comet'

The space rock that hit Earth 65m years ago and is widely implicated in the end of the dinosaurs was probably a speeding comet, US scientists say.

Researchers in New Hampshire suggest the 180km-wide Chicxulub crater in Mexico was carved out by a smaller object than previously thought.

Many scientists consider a large and relatively slow moving asteroid to have been the likely culprit.

Sunset Comet

March 15, 2013: For a comet, visiting the sun is risky business. Fierce solar heat vaporizes gases long frozen in the fragile nucleus, breaking up some comets and completely destroying others.

That's why astronomers weren't sure what would happen in early March when Comet Pan-STARRS, a first-time visitor to the inner solar system, dipped inside the orbit of Mercury. On March 10th, NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft watched as the comet made its closest approach to the sun only 28 million miles away. At that distance, the sun loomed 3 times wider and felt more than 10 times hotter than it does on Earth.

Did a Comet Really Chill and Kill Clovis Culture?

A comet crashing into the Earth some 13,000 years ago was thought to have spelled doom to a group of early North American people, and possibly the extinction of ice age beasts in the region.

But the space rock was wrongly accused, according to a group of 16 scientists in fields ranging from archaeology to crystallography to physics, who have offered counterevidence to the existence of such a collision.

The nucleus of a comet undone: Scientists monitor Hergenrother's breakup

Comet 168P-Hergenrother was imaged by the NOAO/Gemini telescope on Nov. 2, 2011 at about 6 a.m. UTC. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/NOAO/Gemini 

(Phys.org)—The Hergenrother comet is currently traversing the inner-solar system. Amateur and professional astronomers alike have been following the icy-dirt ball over the past several weeks as it has been generating a series of impressive outbursts of cometary-dust material. Now comes word that the comet's nucleus has taken the next step in its relationship with Mother Nature. 

9 dezastre globale ce... nu au avut loc

Este uşor să fii prins în paranoia apocaliptică. La urma urmei e 2012, economia este pe butuci, nivelul oceanelor este în creştere şi toţi supereroii noştri fictivi sunt post-apocaliptici într-un fel sau altul. Dar hai să ne amintim de toate nenorocirile care nu au avut loc.

De-a lungul ultimilor decenii, oamenii au prezis o mulţime de catastrofe zguduitoare la nivel planetar. Noi suntem încă aici, pentru moment.