Collisions of Asteroids and Comets
and the causal effects on class M worlds
A historical view
Comm. R.M. Wey
COSR: SFS-SFC
Historical [both archeological and cosmological] Research conducted into the consequential effects of asteroidal and cometary debris colliding with Class M planets [whether currently inhabited or not] suggests that the inhabitants, including those of Sol3 in the late twentieth and twenty first centuries, of said worlds were confronted with the possibility as being a real one.
In the Sol system [as with many other Class M worlds], the collisions of such asteroids and comets made the planet viable in the early stages of its development. But it is also a fact that such collisions [as documented on Sol3] resulted in the extinction of entire forms of life.
It is well known that tidal forces of neighboring planets within a system, and sometimes from without as well, tend to increase [or sometimes decrease] the odds of an asteroid or comet colliding with another of its neighbors.
In the cases where the forces that are at work occur outside a planetary system [such as the Oort cloud, located just outside the Sol system] the path can be a long one.
One item of interest was the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which collided with the planet Jupiter in the year 1995. Though not a habitable planet, the effects of the chunks of fragments from S-L9 were equated to the devastation one would find from large-scale detonation of nuclear weaponry.
But the largest threat comes from asteroids comprised of iron ore of 30 meters in size or larger [most that are smaller are consumed by the atmosphere before impact]. This is due to the kinetic energy [found using this formula: 1/2mv
2 (where ‘m’ is equal to the mass of the object, and ‘v’ equal to its incoming velocity] released as it impacts upon the surface.Such objects [having collided with a planetary body] are known to alter global weather patterns as well as seismic activity.
It is interesting to note that twentieth century astronomers [as well as other scientists of earth], continued to argue the merits of attempting to catalog the various asteroidal and cometary objects, which could be found in the two main belts that encircled the Sol system in two locations [between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, and just outside the orbit of Pluto].
Because technology of the twenty-third and twenty -fourth centuries make the concerns over such collisions less of a threat, we tend to take lightly the concerns of those earlier times.
However, such would be a grave error in judgment on our part. The concerns of those scientists are just as important to planets less developed than ourselves.
To ignore the wisdom and concerns of the past opens the door to suffering devastation of biblical proportions.