A comet may have hit Earth 28 million years ago.
Some scientists say it may have been a comet strike that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But, there is no strong evidence of this.
Marco Andreoli is with the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation. He says no one has seen a comet hit and lived to tell about it. That is because comets usually burn every living thing in their path to ashes. But Professor Andreoli says the evidence of this comet strike is clear to him.
“We are looking at something of … an astronomical phenomenon.”
Jan Kramers of the University of Johannesburg says the scientific community is divided on his team’s findings that the rock fragment was a comet. But he says the evidence of this comet strike is clear to him.
“It is probably part of a comet, because it can’t be anything else. Coming from the outermost reaches in the solar system, traveling in the gravity of the sun and hitting the Earth by chance. What it did tells you something more. What it did when it hit the atmosphere, it exploded. And that is what comets do when they hit the atmosphere. And this explosion produces an incredible amount of heat which can account for the Libyan desert glass that we found in that region.”
The researchers say they hope additional study of the comet fragments will help them learn more about the beginnings of our universe.
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25