Small Comet bombardment of Earth!

[robinson]

It sounds like a Science Fiction story, but in reality it was more like a warzone, which for those familiar with Internet Forums, should be no surprise.

If I had the time I would type out the story here, making it dramatic and painful to read, much like the real events that led up to the discovery and acceptance of small (house sized) comets bombarding the Earth, every few seconds.

Enough water from space (somewhere around a million tons a day) to explain why the oceans have not dried up.

Why observers have reported flashes on the moon, strange unknown objects transversing the sun, mysterious UFOs filmed by NASA, and why there are all those holes in the upper atmosphere, where the ultraviolet dayglow has been absorbed over areas of 50 to 100 km in diameter.

If you think I'm making all this up, then you would be like almost every other scientist in the world when they first heard about it.

If you want to flame, insult, dismiss and ignore this post, you definitely are like every scientist on the planet.

And who can blame you? It sounds like a delusional mind has gone round the bend. Or some kind of fraud, a scam, something. But it all started with scientific observations, and a few lone voices that focused on reality, rather than the opinions of people who didn't have a clue.

It is a great story, one of scientist moving the goalpost, refusing to listen, and even when faced with evidence, using that time tested method of scientific debunking, the claim that "If this were true somebody would have discovered it already! So it can't be true!"

Most of it is in the following links, but and there is more out there. If you feel like debunking before you read it all, you should know this is a very old story, so study up before you re-invent the wheel here.

Links, in no particular order.

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9705/28/comet.storm/index.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/276/5317/1333
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15520904.600-not-a-snowballs-chance.html
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast09dec97_2.htm
http://www.pacinst.org/publications/worlds_water/worlds_water_2002_water_in_space.pdf
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/09/980910074516.htm
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/headline_universe/small_feb.html&edu=high
http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/faq.htmlx

A good place to read it as a story
http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/preslectures/frank99/index.html

Very interesting stuff. If you were part of it at the time, you would never forget it. And also not want to start a topic about it.

http://www.mkzdk.org/twitcher/oort.
http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/iro/

etc etc

Lots more linked from pages above.

Enjoy. And remember, if it is true, a hundred or more hit the earth while you read this.

[Cainkane1]

I wish a comet the size of Mt. Everest would slam into Mars. The planet needs the water.

[CFLarsen]

It sounds like a Science Fiction story, but in reality it was more like a warzone, which for those familiar with Internet Forums, should be no surprise.

If I had the time I would type out the story here, making it dramatic and painful to read, much like the real events that led up to the discovery and acceptance of small (house sized) comets bombarding the Earth, every few seconds.

Enough water from space (somewhere around a million tons a day) to explain why the oceans have not dried up.

Why observers have reported flashes on the moon, strange unknown objects transversing the sun, mysterious UFOs filmed by NASA, and why there are all those holes in the upper atmosphere, where the ultraviolet dayglow has been absorbed over areas of 50 to 100 km in diameter.

If you think I'm making all this up, then you would be like almost every other scientist in the world when they first heard about it.

If you want to flame, insult, dismiss and ignore this post, you definitely are like every scientist on the planet.

And who can blame you? It sounds like a delusional mind has gone round the bend. Or some kind of fraud, a scam, something. But it all started with scientific observations, and a few lone voices that focused on reality, rather than the opinions of people who didn't have a clue.

It is a great story, one of scientist moving the goalpost, refusing to listen, and even when faced with evidence, using that time tested method of scientific debunking, the claim that "If this were true somebody would have discovered it already! So it can't be true!"

Most of it is in the following links, but and there is more out there. If you feel like debunking before you read it all, you should know this is a very old story, so study up before you re-invent the wheel here.

Links, in no particular order.

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9705/28/comet.storm/index.html
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/276/5317/1333
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15520904.600-not-a-snowballs-chance.html
http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast09dec97_2.htm
http://www.pacinst.org/publications/worlds_water/worlds_water_2002_water_in_space.pdf
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/09/980910074516.htm
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/headline_universe/small_feb.html&edu=high
http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/faq.htmlx

A good place to read it as a story
http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/preslectures/frank99/index.html

Very interesting stuff. If you were part of it at the time, you would never forget it. And also not want to start a topic about it.

http://www.mkzdk.org/twitcher/oort.
http://smallcomets.physics.uiowa.edu/iro/

etc etc

Lots more linked from pages above.

Enjoy. And remember, if it is true, a hundred or more hit the earth while you read this.

How did you get to your low estimate of "like a million tons a day" of water?

[Wangler]

From one of robinsons links:

"He calculates that the comets add enough water to provide an extra one-thousandth of a millimetre of rainfall each year..............................."

I haven't done the math, but that may not be a million tons a day.

Overall, at first glance, this seems to be credible.

Now we know where the fungus came from. Heck, otherworldly origin of life theory ("panspermia?") could use this as well.

There is a lot of water in the solar system, besides the stuff we have here on The Blue Planet.

[Bikewer]

There was an article about this many years ago in the old publication OMNI. Seemed entirely reasonable.

[Tumblehome]

I read about this many years ago and heard nothing about it again so I figured it was bogus. It still might turn out to be nothing, but I like a good mystery.

I don't like calling them "small comets", though, as even the "discoverers" say they're not like regular comets in that they lack any dust at all.

[Apathia]

Is there some way we can capture these comets and bottle the water?
I see $$$!

[Meridian]

From one of robinsons links:

"He calculates that the comets add enough water to provide an extra one-thousandth of a millimetre of rainfall each year..............................."

I haven't done the math, but that may not be a million tons a day.


Sounds about right: the earth is a big place. Radius 6.4x106m, surface area 4\pi r2 = 5x1014m2. So 10-6m per year is 5x108m3 per year, i.e., about 1.4 million tons a day.

[CapelDodger]

If these things are hitting us, why don't we see them hitting Mars? Surely they'd show up.

[CapelDodger]

Is there some way we can capture these comets and bottle the water?
I see $$$!

If it's money you're after, all you need to do is persuade people that you have captured and bottled comet-water. You don't have to go to the trouble of doing it, nor will it matter if they don't actually exist.

[SnuggleSmacks]

yes, you know that Evian is bottled in some guy's bathtub.

[robinson]

If these things are hitting us, why don't we see them hitting Mars? Surely they'd show up.

Again, I suggest reading the documentation before raising objections. You can be sure every astronomer and armchair skeptic brought up almost any objection you can imagine when this first was proposed. Remember, the theory was to explain the data from the satellites and ground based observations, it was not thought up by somebody, but used to explain observations.

Forget Mars, what about the moon? Why don't they hit satellites? The shuttle? How come you can't see them period?

It is a fascinating story.

[fuelair]

http://www2.ifa.hawaii.edu/newsletters/article.cfm?a=121&n=8 (2003)
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast18may_1.htm (2001)
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~hsieh/mbc-release.html (2006)

Looks good, not certain, been going on awhile.

[robinson]

I should have added Phil's page on it.
http://www.badastronomy.com/bitesize/minicomet.html

[Dancing David]

If these things are hitting us, why don't we see them hitting Mars? Surely they'd show up.


Part of our evidence is from radar scanning there are events in thw way upper atmosphere that would match these cometary bodies.

We are very far away from mars, i am not sure what kind of resolution we would need to see events this size.

[robinson]

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast18may_1.htm (2001)
Looks good, not certain, been going on awhile.

Nice link. Thank yee much, I had not viewed that before.

According to some laboratory experiments, a comet born billions of years ago ago in the neighborhood of Jupiter would contain about the same fraction of heavy water as Earth's present-day oceans. Unfortunately, Comet LINEAR broke up before this could be directly confirmed, but its low concentration of volatile organic molecules provides a strong indication that it carried the same kind of water that fills terrestrial seas.

Comets born near Jupiter are rare today because the giant planet's gravity long ago flung most of them into interstellar space. Nevertheless, they would have been numerous during the solar system's formative years.

I always wonder when I read stuff like that, where does all the water come from? Based on the latest measurements and theory, there is a very large amount of water in the Universe, and very much of it in our local system.

I've never read a convincing argument of how it formed. Fascinating. Science marches on.

[Rob Lister]

If these things are hitting us, why don't we see them hitting Mars? Surely they'd show up.

Just speculating, but if they are hitting us, they're likely hitting mars, the moon, venus, and every other large gravity well.

In the case of mars, isn't there evidence of large amounts of underground water? Perhaps the comets are hitting mars but don't burn up in the very thin atmosphere and end up burying themselves in the surface.

In the case of the moon, the comet would certainly bury itself in the impact, and then slowly evaporate (boil away) in the vacuum.

In the case of venus, can't say.

Just guessing.

[Soapy Sam]

I think the point Capeldodger makes is precisely that while Earth's thick atmosphere makes the idea plausible here, similar sized bodies infalling on Mars (or indeed the moon) would reach the surface intact and should indeed be highly visible.

One possible loophole would be if these bodies do exist but are actually terrestrial in origin.
Any free hydrogen in our atmosphere will escape into space in short order. Oxygen may do so too. Plenty of energy up there. Maybe the water is actually from Earth? A few molecules gravitate together, then a few droplets...then a few tons...a long term evaporation / precipitation cycle. Is this remotely possible?

[Tokenconservative]

yes, you know that Evian is bottled in some guy's bathtub.

So it's not CO2, but methane?

[RecoveringYuppy]

I think the point Capeldodger makes is precisely that while Earth's thick atmosphere makes the idea plausible here, similar sized bodies infalling on Mars (or indeed the moon) would reach the surface intact and should indeed be highly visible.
These comets fall apart at an altitude above where the space shuttle orbits. So, moon yes, Mars no.

One possible loophole would be if these bodies do exist but are actually terrestrial in origin.
Any free hydrogen in our atmosphere will escape into space in short order. Oxygen may do so too. Plenty of energy up there. Maybe the water is actually from Earth? A few molecules gravitate together, then a few droplets...then a few tons...a long term evaporation / precipitation cycle. Is this remotely possible?
Not likely and there is really no need to posit such a mechanism. Water is extremely common in the solar system.

[robinson]

I think the point Capeldodger makes is precisely that while Earth's thick atmosphere makes the idea plausible here, similar sized bodies infalling on Mars (or indeed the moon) would reach the surface intact and should indeed be highly visible.

I guess somebody could spend hours reading all the historic data, conflicts and objections to the theory, rather than bringing them up all over again, but what would be the fun of that?

Just let somebody else read everything, then try to convince people who don't have a clue about the science behind it, then get into endless arguments over everything, then waste countless hours trying to convince somebody who hasn't even looked at the data, then ... oh wait, this was all done ad nauseam over a decade ago. No matter, crank up the argumentum ad infinitum generators and lets re-invent the wheel!

[BenBurch]

We can set some bounds on the number of small comets that hit Earth by looking at the moon. Any comet of that size would absolutely create a Transient Lunar Phenomenon (TLP), and those are not very common! And would make a crater large enough to have been seen in orbital surveys conducted since the baseline surveys of the Apollo era.

And we just don't see many craters that have appeared since that time.

So, do small comets hit Earth? Undoubtedly.

Do they contribute millions of tons of water every day? Nope.

And part of the answer here is that a small comet heats much much quicker than a large one, and by the time it has reached Earth's orbit on its way in from the Oort Cloud, would be largely free of volatiles.

[BenBurch]

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transient_lunar_phenomenon;


No impact craters having formed between the Apollo-era, Clementine (global resolution 100 metre, selected areas 7-20 metre) and SMART-1 (resolution 50 metre) missions have been identified.


I had thought there were a small number. Sorry.

[Darth Rotor]

I guess somebody could spend hours reading all the historic data, conflicts and objections to the theory, rather than bringing them up all over again, but what would be the fun of that?

Just let somebody else read everything, then try to convince people who don't have a clue about the science behind it, then get into endless arguments over everything, then waste countless hours trying to convince somebody who hasn't even looked at the data, then ... oh wait, this was all done ad nauseam over a decade ago. No matter, crank up the argumentum ad infinitum generators and lets re-invent the wheel!
Thanks for digging this up, some fun reads. From the NASA page:
"It's like being hit by a snowball instead of an iceberg," said Mumma. "The smaller comets from Jupiter's region impacted Earth relatively gently, shattering high in the atmosphere and delivering most of their organic molecules intact. Such comets would have had a greater portion of life's building blocks -- the complex organic molecules -- to begin with. This means life on Earth did not have to start completely from scratch. Instead, it was delivered in kit form from space."
Planet X Brand water.

Maybe JREF needs to consider a marketing strategy that uses this to raise money.

Free association moment: Xenu might have been from Planet X, eh?

DR

[Soapy Sam]

You think the initial "X" is a clue left by aliens?

[Psi Baba]

From one of the OP's links (didn't anyone else read this one?):
Snowball Comets' Are Just Camera Noise, Berkeley Researchers Say After Analyzing Dark Pixels In Iowa Data

ScienceDaily (Sep. 10, 1998) — WASHINGTON, D.C.--Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley have concluded that "atmospheric holes" in satellite imagery are caused by instrument noise in the spacecraft's own cameras, not by the presence of comets the size of a house bombarding the Earth's atmosphere every few seconds.
Both papers analyze raw data for one day provided by Frank and Sigwarth and additional data in the form of 700,000 pixel clusters, covering 120 days, posted on the web and known as the Iowa catalog. McFadden, et al., investigate the characteristics of the dark pixels in relation to expected noise from the individual components of the two cameras. Using computer simulations, they show that the dark pixels seen in the satellite data from both cameras are entirely consistent with instrumental noise.
Mozer, et al., investigate the distribution of the dark pixels by altitude. They show that there is no appreciable height dependence. The researchers also note that the same pattern of dark pixels is seen in images of the nighttime sky as in sunlit images, which would not be the case if they were caused by external objects such as small comets. They conclude that Frank and Sigwarth's own data processing introduces those "meaningless" dark pixel clusters.
Most of the other articles were published mid-1997. This one was published in late 1998.

[BenBurch]

You think the initial "X" is a clue left by aliens?

No, it was a message from God. Translated it reads; "WE APOLOGISE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE."

[BenBurch]

From one of the OP's links (didn't anyone else read this one?)...

Oh I knew it had been ruled out long ago, so when I did read that it didn't seem worthy of note.

I thought it better to address the issue of whether it EVER happens.

And though it likely does (Tunguska was possibly one such) it likely does not happen bloody often as the lunar data shows.

[CapelDodger]

We are very far away from mars, i am not sure what kind of resolution we would need to see events this size.

Actually we have satellites orbiting Mars that are designed to seek out water in very small amounts. That's why I chose Mars as the hypothetical target, apart from its size.

(I vaguely recalled this whole thing, along with the impression that it had been blown away quite adequately at the time. It seems memory didn't completely fail me on this occasion :).)

[robinson]

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- In a paper published in the March 1, 2001 issue of the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research, University of Iowa physics professor Louis A. Frank says that he has found new evidence to support his theory that the water in Earth's oceans arrived by way of small snow comets.

Frank reports that he obtained pictures of nine small comets among 1,500 images made between October 1998 and May 1999 using the Iowa Robotic Observatory (IRO) located near Sonoita, Ariz. In addition, he says that the possibility of the images being due to "noise," or electronic interference, on the telescope's video screens was eliminated by operating the telescope in such a manner as to ensure that real objects were recorded in the images. This operation of the telescope utilized two simple exposure modes for the acquisition of the images. One scheme used the telescope's shutter to provide two trails of the same small comet in a single image, and the second scheme used the same shutter to yield three trails in an image.

"In the two-trail mode for the telescope's camera, no events were seen with three trails, and for the three-trail mode, no events were seen with two trails," he says. "This simple shutter operation for the telescope's camera provides full assurance that real extraterrestrial objects are being detected." Frank notes these images with the IRO confirm earlier reports of small comet detection using the ground-based Spacewatch Telescope during November 1987, January 1988 and April 1988.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=3997

The Moon offered an active battleground of contention. The central argument for interpretation of the Apollo measurements with seismometers placed on its surface by the astronauts is illustrated by [a 1985 "Fluffy" cartoon by W. B. Park in] Figure 19 [Not shown. "Fluffy", the mascot of several critics of the small comets who insist that the Moon should "ring like a bell"--even if the objects are fluffy small comets--is shown falling through the air like a rock. The caption notes that it doesn't matter whether Fluffy lands on his feet or not.].

That is, no matter what the impacting object on the Moon was, rock or cat or small comet, the disturbances recorded by the seismometers would be the same. Although amusing, this position is not reasonable when one considers the different results of a hand-thrown rock or snowball, each weighing one pound, for example. It was expected that the Moon would be "ringing like a bell" from the large number of meteors which were causing the fireballs in the Earth's atmosphere. Surprisingly the Moon was silent, except for a relatively rare meteor event or the thermal groans of the surface.
http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/preslectures/frank99/page3.html

[BeAChooser]

a hundred or more hit the earth while you read this.

So what's the probability of the space station being hit during its life by one of these?

[robinson]

Zero. Now read the links. I'm telling you, it is damn interesting, but I am no expert on the matter.

[BenBurch]

Zero. Now read the links. I'm telling you, it is damn interesting, but I am no expert on the matter.

IF this were happening as often as those links suggest, it would be hit about once a year...

[RecoveringYuppy]

IF this were happening as often as those links suggest, it would be hit about once a year...
You mean pass through rather than hit? At the altitude the shuttle is at these things would barely be distinguishable from the vacuum of space.

[RecoveringYuppy]

Actually we have satellites orbiting Mars that are designed to seek out water in very small amounts. That's why I chose Mars as the hypothetical target, apart from its size.
Well, we've found water there in small amounts. It's a trace (.04%) in the atmosphere of Mars. Is that too little?

[BenBurch]

You mean pass through rather than hit? At the altitude the shuttle is at these things would barely be distinguishable from the vacuum of space.

They would still contain lots of solids; Comets are NOT all ice. It would be like flying through a cloud of buckshot.

[BenBurch]

Well, we've found water there in small amounts. It's a trace (.04%) in the atmosphere of Mars. Is that too little?

MUCH! Were this true, Mars would have liquid water on its surface and an atmospheric pressure high enough to sustain that. We would absolutely know this was happening.

[RecoveringYuppy]

How do you know they would contain solids? Especially buckshot sized?

[RecoveringYuppy]

MUCH! Were this true, Mars would have liquid water on its surface and an atmospheric pressure high enough to sustain that. We would absolutely know this was happening.
How do you figure that? The way I see it this water would be nearly at Mars escape velocity the instant it arrived in Mars outer atmosphere.

[Dancing David]

So what's the probability of the space station being hit during its life by one of these?


I don't know take the surface area of the space station, devide by the surface area of the earth's atmosphere and fudge for gravitational attraction.

The space station is more likely to get holed by space junk, especially stuff that escapes from the station.

[RecoveringYuppy]

So what's the probability of the space station being hit during its life by one of these?

I don't know take the surface area of the space station, devide by the surface area of the earth's atmosphere and fudge for gravitational attraction.

The space station is more likely to get holed by space junk, especially stuff that escapes from the station.
If I suppose the space station to be five hundred feet (a tenth of a mile) across it has a cross section of 1/100 square miles. The cross section of the Earth is about 50 million square miles. So, not fudging for gravity, the station is 5 billion times less likely to be hit.

If I assume that the Earth being hit "every couple of seconds" works out to 40,000 hits a day or 14.6 million a year.

So the station would be hit once every 300 years or so.

That's assuming these things survive to the altitude of the space station.

[BenBurch]

How do you know they would contain solids? Especially buckshot sized?

All comets we have looked at in detail have been of the "dirty snowball" model, and some appear to have a crust that almost totally covers the internal ice. But we knew there were solids long ago as there are two tails to almost any comet; The gas tail and the dust tail, and many meteor showers are associated with current and extinct periodic comets. And I did not mean buckshot sized; at those speeds a grain of sand has more energy in it than a 00 buckshot taken at close range.

And if I recall correctly, the Mir space station was hit by a micrometeorite during a known meteor shower, and it blew a fist-sized hole through one of the solar panels. And Endeavor had one of its windows hit.

[robinson]

I'm still wondering about this figure.

As pointed out above, it DOES get bigger over time. About 50 tons a day of in-falling meteoric material.

50 tons a day of solid meteoric material. Where does that come from? How come it doesn't hit satellites, shuttles, the space station? How come we don't see it hitting the moon?

Fluffy ice balls that turn to water vapor 600 miles out I can almost believe, but 50 tons of rock and metal every day? What is that all about?

[BenBurch]

That is based on radio and visual observations of infall rates, and data from the Pegasus satellite and high-altitude aircraft dust capturing missions.

The trouble with fluffy iceballs is that they do not exist.