© Dr. A Parker/Southwest Research Institute
Impact craters on the moon reveal that the number of asteroid impacts increased dramatically over the last 300 million years. Here, a map of all the impact craters larger than 6 miles (10 kilometers) in diameter and younger than 1 billion years old.
Like a motorcycle windshield splattering bugs on the highway, Earth's atmosphere is constantly deflecting tiny bits of extraterrestrial rock, dust and other space garbage that get in the way of our planet's 67,000-mph (107,000 km/h)
joyride. Occasionally, that debris breaks through - as it did
66 million years ago, when an asteroid the size of Manhattan crashed into the Gulf of Mexico and
killed the dinosaurs.
That impact was singularly catastrophic. But, according to a new study published today (Jan. 17) in the
journal Science, that smashup was also just one episode in an ongoing spike of gargantuan asteroid impacts bombarding our neck of the solar system. After studying 1 billion years of
asteroid craters on the Earth and moon,
the study's authors found that the rate of huge asteroid impacts on Earth has nearly tripled in the past 290 million years - and nobody's sure why.
"It's perhaps fair to say it was a date with destiny for the dinosaurs," study co-author Thomas Gernon, associate professor of Earth science at the University of Southampton in the U.K.,
said in a statement. "Their downfall was somewhat inevitable given the surge of large space rocks colliding with Earth."
Comment: Scientists should be held accountable for propagating such ignorance and wishful thinking. The threat of cyclical cometary catastrophes is very real, it has been well documented by peoples throughout history and it is clearly evident in the archaeological record:
- Tunguska, Psychopathy and the Sixth Extinction
- Tunguska, the Horns of the Moon and Evolution
- Prehistoric cave art study reveals ancient people had complex knowledge of astronomy and were tracking catastrophic meteor showers
- Of Flash Frozen Mammoths and Cosmic Catastrophes
- Something Wicked This Way Comes
- 536 AD: Plague, famine, drought, cold, and a mysterious fog that lasted 18 months
And to hear what the historical records have to say on the matter, check out SOTT radio's: Behind the Headlines: Who was Jesus? Examining the evidence that Christ may in fact have been Caesar!