Re: Impact Scenario/New Ref.

[Stan Friesen <swf@ElSegundoCA.ATTGIS.COM>]

>From: Willa25743@aol.com
 > No, I said "in impacting models only recently proposed." ...

Ah, of course.
 > 
 > Duncan Steel appears to disagree with these scientists in that he 
 > makes no sharp delineation between comets and asteroids. A classic
 > "dirty snowball" comet seems different from a classic rocky asteroid, 
 > but he thinks there as a wide range of mixtures in between. To him,
 > the modeling suggests an ice-coated stony cometary fragment, as 
 > opposed to the rock or snowball, or a metallic body or organic "tar"-
 > coated sludge ball.

Well, I would say stony snowball ...

Certainly the small fragments that make up the comet-related
meteor showers are probably mostly rock.  But comets are pretty
clearly mostly various ices.

And *asteroids* are an entirely different class of objects, being
the remnants of a failed planet between Mars and Jupiter, as opposed
to shards of the original gas cloud we see in comets.
 > ... found that the arrival direction 
 > (what meteor watchers call the "radiant") of the object appeared to be 
 > slightly west of the sun in the constellation Taurus. This corresponds 
 > with the radiant of the meteor shower as determined by radar. Kresak
 > also pointed out that this meteoroid swarm is known to be linked to
 > comet Encke.

Hmm, well this does seem to be some fairly good evidence.

However, given its arial break-up, I think it was probably
a rather larger, icier fragment than the typical meteors.
This sound more like Encke split in two at some point, and one
of the two main fragments struck the Earth.

 > >This seems unlikely to me.  Pyramid building in Egypt developed
 > >gradually, over a period of a hundred years or more.  And the designs
 > >used changed over time....
 > 
 > I agree that his conclusions seem far-fetched. But in his defense, he does
 > contend that such catastrophism was not random but instead in surges 
 > that lasted for hundreds (maybe 1,000s) of years. And that the effects 
 > may have ranged from displays resembling fireworks, multi-megaton
 > blasts or merely glowing pyramid-shaped zodiacal light. 

Another major problem with this is that the original period of
pyramid buuilding in Egypt was a period of a strong, growing,
outwardly oriented economy.  Egypt was a rich world power at
the time. A period of repeated disasters would have left the
economy strained and impoverished, much as the droughts of the
later part of the third millenium in fact did (being a contributer
to the fall of the Old Kingdom).
 > 
 > Indeed, notes Steel, "disaster" is derived from words meaning "evil star"!
 > 
So?  Astrology was a big thing in ancient times.  "Evil star" would
simply have meant "ill-omened".

swf@elsegundoca.attgis.com              sarima@netcom.com

The peace of God be with you.