First Civilizations Wiped Out …

Telegraph.co.uk; Nov. 4, 2001; News: "Meteor clue to end of Middle East civilizations"

Space.com; Nov. 13, 2001; News: "Comets, Meteors & Myth: New Evidence for Toppled Civilizations and Biblical Tales"

Atlantis, the Great Flood, the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Akkadian culture of Iraq -- what do they have in common? Whether real or imagined, all involve the disappearance of advanced civilizations by unexplained or catastrophic events prior to 2,000 B.C. New clues may explain all these civilization-ending Bronze Age mysteries as the result of an attack from outer space: while still speculative, the clues point to meteors and comets wiping out the "first" civilizations and empires on the planet.

Recent examination of satellite imagery reveals a 3-km crater near the junction of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. This region is historically known as Mesopotamia and formed part of the larger Fertile Crescent -- a region that stretched to the Nile River. Access to water and irrigation techniques led to the rise of many of the first recorded civilizations along the banks of these rivers.

The age of the sediments in the Iraq region indicates a crater age less than 6,000-years old. Mesopotamia was populated 7,000-years ago and many of the ancient civilizations in the area died out 4,300-years ago. This makes whatever formed the crater a prime suspect in disappearance of ancient cultures and the appearance in ancient writings of stories of cataclysmic destruction.

Throughout the world, there are a dozen impact craters that formed within the past 10,000 years. Two large ones formed in Argentina within the past 5,000 years. Because of the extent of the oceans, it is reasonable to believe that for every crater found on the ground there are several under water.

If the craters all formed around the same time, then ancient civilizations world-wide suffered a fate that was once thought to be a problem only for modern society: explosions with the force of hundreds of nuclear bombs destroying settlements locally and affecting climates globally. Analysis of sediments on land and ocean, as well as tree ring data indicates abrupt climatic changes did happen around the time of the crater impacts. And it may not have been a one-time event.

A large comet may have broken up and created a cloud of meteors that the Earth repeatedly passed through every year for a decade. The debris in our atmosphere would have made it hard for the Sun to shine through and caused global cooling.

… It Could Happen Again!

Princeton University; Nov. 10, 2001; Press Release: "Survey Lowers Estimate of Asteroid Impact Risk"

A small asteroid -- 1-km in diameter -- could ruin the day for one-quarter of the Earth's population if it hit our planet. Bigger space rocks, like the 10-km-wide "mountain" suspected of causing the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65-million years ago, could end civilization altogether. So scientists are eager to learn: What are the odds of a 1-km or larger object striking our planet in any 100-year period? The answer to this question requires knowledge of the size distribution of large asteroids in our area of space and the historical record of collisions with Earth.

Historical evidence let's researchers assume that 10-km "dino-killing" events happen every 100-million-years. Discovering the distribution of asteroid sizes is problematic. At distances of hundreds of kilometers, even a "dino-killer" is dim and hard to spot from Earth.

That's where the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) comes in handy. As a survey to chart the large, faint objects outside our galaxy, it naturally discovers many dim asteroids that float through the field of being imaged. Software automatically detects these asteroids and determines their color signature and distance. Color indicates composition, which determines how much light the asteroid reflects from the Sun. These factors can be used to derive a size estimate for the object.

SDSS categorization of 10,000 asteroids within our Solar System's asteroid belt yields an estimated 700,000 rocks bigger than 1-km. This population of "main belt" asteroids feeds a smaller population of "near Earth" asteroids -- the kind that are a threat to Earth.

Calculations indicate that there is a 1:5,000 chance that one of these will strike the Earth in a 100-year period. This is actually good news because prior estimates placed the odds of such a collision at three times higher. The SDSS odds are also in agreement with a study to be published by the Spacewatch Project at the University of Arizona. That group studied actual near-earth asteroids to reach their conclusion.

Pluto: Planet and Mission at the Margins

Spacedaily.com; Nov. 8, 2001; Rim Worlds: "Pluto Mission Gets A Boost With Joint House Support"

A joint U.S. House and Senate budget committee has sent a strong message by appropriating $30-million for a mission to Pluto, its moon Charon and the Kuiper Belt. The Pluto mission has evolved over the years and survived several cancellations due to lobbying by the professional and amateur planetary exploration community. "The people let Congress know that they want NASA to explore Pluto -- the only remaining unexplored planet in our solar system -- and Congress responded," said Louis Friedman, The Planetary Society's Executive Director. (See NewsNotes 10.01.01: "We're Another Centimeter Closer to Pluto!" and 08.01.01: "Pluto Re-Re-Visited?")

The funding is for fiscal year 2002 and is part of the budget to explore the outer planets. Funding levels and logistics prevent the actual launch from occurring before 2006. Arrival to the most distant of planets would be before 2020. The arrival time will be at the last possible moment for maximum scientific gain. Around the time of arrival, Pluto's tenuous atmosphere should freeze and condense onto its surface. Scientists hope the probe will reach there before that time so it can make an analysis of the gas composition.