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In Impact, Gerrit L. Verschuur offers an eye-opening look at catastrophic collisions with our planet. Perhaps more important, he paints an unsettling portrait of the possibility of new collisions with earth, exploring potential threats to our planet and describing what scientists are doing right now to prepare for this awful possibility.
Every day something from space hits our planet, Verschuur reveals. In fact, about 10,000 tons of space debris fall to earth every year, mostly in meteoric form. But meteors are not the greatest threat to life on earth, the author points out. The major threats are asteroids and comets.
The reader discovers that astronomers have located some 350 NEAs ("Near Earth Asteroids"), objects whose orbits cross the orbit of the earth, the largest of which are 1627 Ivar (6 kilometers wide) and 1580 Betula (8 kilometers). Comets, of course, are even more deadly. Verschuur provides a gripping description of the small comet that exploded in the atmosphere above the Tunguska River valley in Siberia, in 1908, in a blinding flash visible for several thousand miles (every tree within sixty miles of ground zero was flattened).
In addition, the author describes the efforts of Spacewatch and other groups to locate NEAs, and evaluates the idea that comet and asteroid impacts have been an underrated factor in the evolution of life on earth.
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Subjects
Impact, Comets, Evolution (Biology), Asteroids, Earth (planet), Disasters, SCIENCE, Earth Sciences, Sedimentology & Stratigraphy, Impakt, Kometen, Meteoren, Planetoïden, Risico'sPlaces
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Impact!: The Threat of Comets and Asteroids
October 20, 1997, Oxford University Press, USA
in English
0195119193 9780195119190
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Impact!: the threat of comets and asteroids
1996, Oxford University Press
in English
0195101057 9780195101058
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3
Impact!: The Threat of Comets and Asteroids
October 24, 1996, Oxford University Press, USA, Oxford University Press
in English
0195101057 9780195101058
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Book Details
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Includes bibliographical references (p. [223]-226) and indexes.
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- Created April 1, 2008
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July 30, 2010 | Edited by IdentifierBot | added LibraryThing ID |
April 14, 2010 | Edited by Open Library Bot | Linked existing covers to the edition. |
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April 1, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from Scriblio MARC record |