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... jostling seismometers installed all over the globe. From this wealth of seismic signals, geophysicists have found that the inner core, lubricated by the fluid outer core, rotates about 1.1 per year faster than the mantle and crust. The inner core interacts with the geomagnetic field and is, in effect, like the rotor of a slow, ponderous induction motor. Expanding upon this vision of the earth as a colossal electrical machine, E. Stokstad writes: "Electric currents of about a billion amps flow across the boundary between the solid inner core and the fluid outer core that lies around it. In the presence of the Earth's magnetic field, these currents generate massive forces that tug on the inner core. And because the outer core has a relatively low viscosity, the inner ... 221, 1996) Comments. Awesome as this gigantic natural electric motor may be, it doesn't challenge any paradigms; in fact, it reinforces current notions concerning the origin of the geomagnetic field. The anomalist, however, inevitably asks questions and makes iconoclastic connections. Why couldn't this planet-size piece of rotating machinery actually be a generator rather than a motor? The kinetic energy of the faster-spinning inner core might actually create the geomagnetic field. What happens when the geomagnetic field reverses, as it has often done according to the magnetostratigraphic record? Does the earth's motor go into reverse? If the inner core can slip relative to the crust and mantle, why cannot the crust-plus-mantle slip, too -- perhaps catastrophically? Pole- ...
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... years ago at Oklo, Gabon. The concentration and configuration of the natural uranium and surrounding materials at that time had been just right to sustain fission. In fact, the analysis of the nuclear waste in the burned rocks demonstrated that plutonium had also been created. This implies that natural breeder reactors are also possible, raising the possibility of hitherto unappreciated, long-lived heat sources deep in the earth, in the other planets, and inside some of the stars. Don't worry that the Oklo phenomenon might occur today on the earth's surface. The concentration of fissionable U-235 has fallen considerably in the last 2 billion years due to its radioactive decay. But, deep inside the earth and other astronomical bodies, nuclear criticality might still be possible due to different pressures ... .M . Herndon proffers four important natural phenomena that may involve natural fission reactors. Geomagnetic reversals . In the deep earth, where pressures and densities are high, natural nuclear reactors may generate intermittent bursts of heat -- just as they did at Oklo -- and thereby cause the earth's dynamo to falter and reverse. Planetary heating . Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune emit much more energy than they receive from the sun. Natural nuclear reactors could be the reason. Stellar thermonuclear ignition . Astronomers assume that the high temperatures required to ignite the thermonuclear reactions powering stars come from gravitational collapse, but this source does not seem adequate to some scientists. Nuclear fission reactors could ignite stars just as they do H-bombs. Missing matter . Natural nuclear reactors are finicky. There may ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 108: Nov-Dec 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Glow Below Is there such a thing as sunless photosynthesis? Did photosynthesis evolve at the earth's surface or deep in the oceans near hydrothermal vents? Such questions are engendered by the strength of the mysterious glow that emanates from these deep-sea vents. It is at these cracks in the ocean floor that very hot, mineralladen water gushes forth, and where colonies of bizarre tube worms, blind shrimp, and hyperthermophilic (high temperature-loving) bacteria thrive. (For details, see SF#60 or p. 238 in Science Frontiers, the book) The first anomaly is the strength of the glow itself. It ... not all thermal radiation emitted by the 350 C water spewing forth from the vents; in fact, it is 19 times more intense than expected from theory. Something else is contributing energy, but no one knows what it is so far. The unexpected intensity of the vent glows also asks some provocative questions of the biologists: Is the glow strong enough to sup port photosynthesis? Quite likely, seems to be the answer. Are life forms in the vicinity of the vents employing photosynthesis? We don't know yet, but some bacteria do photosynthesize. Might not life and perhaps photo synthesis, too, have originated at the vents rather than on the planet's surface? This is an attractive possi bility, because very early in the earth's history the surface was con ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 111: May-Jun 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Carnot Creatures Photosynthesis is the ultimate source of energy for most of the life forms we recognize here on earth. Sure, there are also a few creatures that derive their energy by oxidizing the sulfides dissolved in the 400 water gushing forth from deep-sea vents. We will call them "geochemical creatures" to separate them from the "photosynthetic creatures" we are more familiar with. But, in principle at least, there could also be "Carnot creatures", whose metabolisms depend upon temperature differences like almost all human-built engines. Some bizarre animal, such as a meter-long tube worm, could plant one end on ... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 111: May-Jun 1997 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Carnot Creatures Photosynthesis is the ultimate source of energy for most of the life forms we recognize here on earth. Sure, there are also a few creatures that derive their energy by oxidizing the sulfides dissolved in the 400 water gushing forth from deep-sea vents. We will call them "geochemical creatures" to separate them from the "photosynthetic creatures" we are more familiar with. But, in principle at least, there could also be "Carnot creatures", whose metabolisms depend upon temperature differences like almost all human-built engines. Some bizarre animal, such as a meter-long tube worm, could plant one end on ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 119: Sep-Oct 1998 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mounds Of Mystery Unlike many controversies in science, the debates over the origin of the Mima Mounds have been friendly. No one gets overly passionate over bizarre heaps of earth; the Mima Mounds are "fun phenomena." Nevertheless, the biggest of them on the Mima Prairie, near Little Rock, Washington, are very impressive. They are closely-packed, some 6-8 feet high and about 30 feet across. It's kind of eerie walking among them; but they are also fun to ride over in vehicles -- they create a sort of natural roller-coaster effect. There are thousands upon thousands of mounds ... as some have estimated, they are about 6,000 years old, they were originally twice as high before the elements wore them down. The big question is and always has been: How were these large heaps of churned-up sand, fine gravel, and decayed vegetable matter formed? One has to smile at the dominant theory: pocket! Sure! pocket gophers are bundles of digging energy, but each Mima Mound contains about 100 tons of soil. Multiply that figure by the thousands of mounds, and you begin to wonder about the gopher theory. Also counting against the gophers is the fact that no one has ever found gophers in the mounds, nor has a single gopher bone been found. Now Mima Mounds are found in great numbers in many other locations in North America ...
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... by cave occupants higher up the food chain. A NASA scientist has called Movile cave a "Mars analog site." And indeed it might be, for Mars has plenty of rocks and subsurface water. (Skinrud, E.; "Romanian Cave Contains Novel Ecosystem," Science News, 149: 405, 1996) Comments. Fluid-filled cracks and pores extend miles down below the earth's surface. It would be surprising if novel ecosystems do not exist there, too. The ice-sealed Antarctic lakes (see next item under GEOLOGY) may also surprise biologists. As for outer space -- a realm pulsing with energies of many kinds -- we can imagine that matter has assumed many unfamiliar forms, some of which we might call "life." From ... ONLINE No. 107: Sep-Oct 1996 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Rock-Based Life Virtually all biology textbooks insist that all terrestrial life ultimately depends upon sunlight for its survival. The ecosystems clustered around the deep-sea vents and the bacteria found in deep aquifers demonstrate that the sun is not essential to life -- chemical energy does just fine. In fact, the domain of chemosynthetic life has now been extended to a Romanian cave that has apparently been almost completely sealed off from surface influences for 5.5 million years. Air does leak in through tiny cracks, and water partially fills the cave. What is most remarkable in this sunless, sealed ecosystem is its biodiversity: 48 animal species, including 33 brand ...
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... and fireball that shat ters nearby TWA Flight 800. Supporting Spalding's theory are the many reports of light flashes, light streaks, and booming/rumbling sounds accompanying the disaster. But, methane burps are bizarre, and the properties of methane hydrate are so unfamiliar to most scientists and investigators of aircraft disasters that Spalding's idea has received scant attention. (Spohn, Lawrence; "Earth 'Burp' Might Have Downed Jet, Scientists Says," Albuquerque Tribune, January 20, 1997. More appeared in the January 24, issue. Cr. R. Spalding) Comment. The phenomena accompanying methane burps are well known to SF readers. First, there are the common offshore booms that have been reported for centuries (SF#3 /283, SF#8 / ... meteors.) Spalding proposes the following scenario: The ocean floor releases a massive methane gas plume, which rapidly rises to the surface and ascends into the atmosphere. The lighter-than-air methane cloud gains altitude, mixing with oxygen and thereby gaining explosive poten tial. An electrical disturbance -- possibly caused by the rising cloud itself or a lightning strike -- detonates the cloud. Awesome energy is instantly re leased in the form of a devastating shock wave and fireball that shat ters nearby TWA Flight 800. Supporting Spalding's theory are the many reports of light flashes, light streaks, and booming/rumbling sounds accompanying the disaster. But, methane burps are bizarre, and the properties of methane hydrate are so unfamiliar to most scientists and investigators of aircraft disasters that Spalding' ...
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... than our biggest earthbound atom smashers. (Anonymous; "The Deepening Mystery of Cosmic-Ray Origins," Sky and Telescope, 87:12, May 1994.) Comment. Actually, the source of "the big one" need not have been nearby and recent. All anomalists will recognize that this is an assumption based upon the particle's extremely high energy when it hit the earth. Why couldn't the particle's original energy have been much higher than 3 x 1020 ev? Then, it could have wandered for eons. After all, it is apparent that we are already dealing with an accelerating mechanism far beyond terrestrial experience. Who's to say what its real potential is? Reference. Cosmic-ray anomalies are cataloged in category ATF in Stars ... ?October 15, 1991. American Southwest. Photomultipliers in the Fly's Eye telescopes 100 kilometers southwest of Salt Lake City recorded the havoc wrought in the upper atmosphere by the most energetic cosmic-ray particle ever measured. When this tiny subatomic particle slammed into air molecules, the ensuing debris caused the surrounding atmosphere to fluoresce. The amount of light produced indicated that this cosmic ray had an energy of 3 x 1020 electron volts -- that's equivalent to the energy of a bowling ball dropped from waist level. Now that's a lot of energy for a subatomic particle! Because cosmic rays normally lose energy as they collide with photons in their cosmic wanderings, astrophysicists believe that "the big one" had to have a recent, nearby origin in order to still be ...
Terms matched: 2 - Score: 90 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf095/sf095a06.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 100: Jul-Aug 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects How can the moon affect the earth's temperature?Several weather phenomena, such as precipitation and thunderstorm frequency, have been linked to the phase of the moon. Now, it seems that the moon's "cold" emanations can also raise the earth's temperature. Explaining how the moon's phase can have any warming effect at all on the earth's atmosphere is difficult, because the infrared energy received from the moon is only 10-5 that in sunlight. Nevertheless, a slight but statistically significant temperature effect does exist. In one study, the microwave emission of molecular oxygen was measured by a polar ... orbit satellite. These data gave meteorologists the temperatures of the lowest 6 kilometers of the atmosphere from all areas of the planet. The temperature difference between full moon and new moon was only 0.02 C, with the full-moon temperature being the higher. (Ref. 1) A second study took actual surface temperatures measured at noon GMT each day at 51,200 locations around the world. These near-surface temperatures revealed a difference of 0.2 C between full and new moons -- ten times larger than that from the satellite study. (Ref. 2) 0.2 C and even 0.02 C are much too large to be attributed to direct lunar "heating." Instead, geophysicists wonder if the moon's orbit modulates the influx of ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 94: Jul-Aug 1994 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Mystery Radio Bursts "Mysterious double bursts of radio emissions, originating near the surface of the earth, have been detected by a small satellite designed to spot nuclear blasts. "Although the powerful pulses of electromagnetic energy occur predominantly at times of day favored by thunderstorms, they are not accompanied by flashes of visible light and they do not resemble the emissions generated by classic lightning." Since November 5, 1993, about 100 of these bursts have been detected by a special radio receiver named "Blackbird" mounted on the Alexis satellite. Most of the bursts have been recorded over Africa and South America, although they may also be frequent elsewhere ... are drowned out by man-made radio noise from the ground. The bursts come in pairs that are separated by 40 microseconds. The frequency dispersion of the bursts indicates that the signals have passed through the earth's ionosphere before reaching the satellite. Most bursts are picked up in the afternoon and early morning. There is some speculation that the bursts may be associated with the flashes of light recently reported above storm systems. (SF#90) (Quote from: Sawyer, Kathy; "Electrodynamics: Strange Bursts from the Sky," Washington Post, February 14, 1994. Also: Monastersky, R.; "Puzzling Atmospheric Bursts Spark Interest," Science News, 145:100, 1994. Hecht, Jeff; "Satellite Tunes in to Mystery Radio Bursts," ...
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... impact on the moon that gouged out the crater named Giordano Bruno, 20 kilometers in diameter. June 30, 1908. Siberia. "On the morning of June 30, 1908, a tremendous explosion deep in the Siberian taiga near the Tunguska river caused trees over an area of 40 km in diameter to be flattened in a radial pattern and produced a pressure wave in the atmosphere which circled the Earth." June 17-27, 1975. On the moon. ". .. an unusual meteoroid 'storm' was detected by the array of seismometers placed on the moon during the Apollo missions. The peak impact rate on the moon of 0.5 -to-50-kg objects was about 10 times the normal background during this interval. Such a high rate was not ... the human intellect. Nature, though, had already beat E. Fermi and his colleagues by 2 billion years. For at Oklo and Bangombe, in the African Republic of Gabon, one finds the "ashes" where some 17 natural nuclear reactors cooked away for hundreds of thousands of years. Operating at temperatures as high as 360 C, they generated about 17,800 megawatt-years of energy. The Gabon reactors were discovered in 1972 when the French found that uranium ore from Gabon contained anomalously low concentrations of the fissionable isotope 235U as well as fission products. A little excavation work uncovered small pockets, a few meters in length and less than a meter in width, where natural fission had occurred in the Precambrian period. A geological reconstruction of what probably happened involves: (1 ...
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... a Diamond," American Laboratory , p. 28, December 1993. Cr. N. Ethridge.) Comments. More on the radiohalo problem can be found in Science Frontiers (the book, p. 213) and under ESP1 in Anomalies in Geology . Ordering information for both of these books is located here . Note, too, that creationists employ radiohalos to attempt to prove that the earth is really young. Finally, American Laboratory is one of the thousands of journals we have not examined. It is painfully obvious that, even with some 40,000 journal volumes reviewed, we have much farther to go! From Science Frontiers #92, MAR-APR 1994 . 1994-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... Our personal speculation that a quasar epoch might involve a change in the fundamental properties of time, matter, and space -- something like a cosmic phase change (See SF#74/329.*) Apparently, something was basically different in the universe 1.9 -3 .0 billion years ago when quasars reigned. Curiously, there seems to have been something fundamentally different here on earth about 570 million years ago -- the time of the Cambrian explosion, when essentially all the basic body plans (the phyla) of life originated. (SF#85/187) If the universe is much younger than 15 billion years, as some astronomers insist, we might be able to correlate the two epochs when things were really different! *SF#85/187 = ... ONLINE No. 102: Nov-Dec 1995 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects 2,000,000,000 BC: THE EPOCH OF QUASARS Quasars are remarkable astronomical objects. Discovered only 30 years ago, they are the most luminous entities in the universe. Supposedly powered by a black hole, each quasar emits hundreds of times more energy than all the billions of stars in the Milky Way. Just how a quasar works is surmise. What we now know from two surveys by two different groups of astronomers is that most quasars have redshifts between 2 and 3. In the theoretical framework of the expanding universe, redshifts are proportional to recessional velocity, distance from the observer, and age. From the redshifts, it seems that ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 25: Jan-Feb 1983 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology A Far-wandering Lost Tribe? Manifestations of Earth Energy At Megalithic Sites? Astronomy More on "the Massive Solar Companion" Lageos Falls Too Fast Biology Learning by Injection Promiscuous DNA Why Don't We All Have Cancer? Review of the Tektite Problem The Andes Ice Islands Geology Three "proofs" of A Young Earth Geophysics Gas Hydrates and the Bermuda Triangle Psychology Schizophrenia and Season of Birth Chemistry & Physics Anomalons Are Lazy Or Fat ...
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... What we often ignore is the fact that forces and energies almost beyond our comprehension course through the cosmos. Even the Starship Enterprise could not really survive out there. Three cautionary tidits will illustrate the hazards as well as our ignorance of them. "What could possibly accelerate a single subatomic particle to such a high speed, 99.99999999999999999999 percent that of light, that it would smash into the earth's atmosphere with the energy of a hard-hit tennis ball? If you don't have a clue you're not alone. These particles are ultra-high-energy cosmic rays, which are billions of times more energetic than the run-of-the-mill cosmic rays that continuously bombard earth's atmosphere." (Anonymous; "Space Streakers," ... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 123: May-Jun 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects The Storm-Swept Cosmos Snug and comfy beneath our insulating atmosphere and magnetosphere, we muse glibly about voyages to the stars and wonder whether extraterrestrials may already have established galactic civilizations. What we often ignore is the fact that forces and energies almost beyond our comprehension course through the cosmos. Even the Starship Enterprise could not really survive out there. Three cautionary tidits will illustrate the hazards as well as our ignorance of them. "What could possibly accelerate a single subatomic particle to such a high speed, 99.99999999999999999999 percent that of light, that it would smash into the earth's atmosphere with the energy of a hard-hit ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 125: Sep-Oct 1999 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Two Non-Falls Sometimes things that are predicted to fall or respond dutifully to gravity's dictates do not. No house-size snowballs. Back in 1985, L. Frank saw dark spots on satellite images of the earth's atmosphere. He interpreted them as huge splotches of water created by incoming cometary snowballs. (SF#112, 114, 118, and earlier) Although some other data supported Frank's theory, many scientists scoffed. After some mildly acrimonious debate, a consensus decided that the spots on the satellite photos were merely instrument artifacts. Any lingering doubts as to Frank's house-size snowballs ... C. Ginenthal) Comments. The gravity-defying phenomena at Spook Hill and all "magnetic vortices" that have been carefully investigated are definitely illusory. The road at Spook Hill slopes downward despite what our eye-brain computer tells us. Also pertinent is the uphill flow of water in irrigation channels. A sight to be seen in the American west. Of course the water loses some kinetic energy in the process. From Science Frontiers #125, SEP-OCT 1999 . 1999-2000 William R. Corliss ...
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... The Blackness of Cometary Nuclei ACX OCCULTATIONS BY COMETS ACX1 Cometary Tails: Anomalous Occultations of Radio Stars AE ENIGMATIC OBJECTS AEO BRIGHT ENIGMATIC OBJECTS AEO1 Bright Objects near the Sun AEO2 Starlike Objects with Anomalous Motions AEO3 Unexplained Nebulous Objects AEX UNIDENTIFIED OBJECTS TRANSITING THE SUN, MOON, AND PLANETS AEX1 Objects Crossing the Face of the Sun AEX2 Objects Crossing the Moon's Disk AEX3 Unidentified Objects Transiting Jupiter AG THE EARTH AGB ANOMALIES IN THE EARTH'S ROTATION AGB1 Variations in Latitude AGL EARTH-SATELLITE PHENOMENA AGL1 Slow Changes in Satellite Inclination AGL2 Sudden Perturbations of Orbital Elements AGL3 Slow, Unexplained Descent of Satellites AGL4 Direct Visual Observations of Natural Earth Satellites AGL5 Radio Propagation and Natural Earth Satellites AGL6 Correlation of Geophysical Events with Perigee Passages of Natural Earth Satellites AGO OBSERVATIONS OF EARTH FROM SPACE AGO1 Periodic Changes in Earth ... , BHB1 = B (Biology)+ H (Humans)+ B (Behavior)+ 1 (first anomaly in Chapter BHB). Some anomalies and curiosities that are listed below have not yet been cataloged and published in catalog format. These do not have the alphanumerical labels. AA ASTEROIDS AAB CELESTIAL MECHANICS PROBLEMS WITH ASTEROIDS AAB1 Anomalous Asteroid Orbits AAB2 Asteroid Distribution Anomalies AAB3 The High "Internal Energy" of the Asteroid Population AAB4 Peculiar Distribution of Asteroid Spin Rates AAB5 Unexplained Residual Precession of Icarus AAB6 Evidence against an Explosive Origin for Asteroids AB SOLAR SYSTEM "LAWS" AND INTERRELATIONSHIPS ABB DYNAMICS OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM AS-A -WHOLE ABB1 Solar-System Instability ABB2 Circularity of Planetary Orbits ABB3 Anomalous Split of Angular Momentum between Sun and Planets ABB4 Ubiquity of Resonances in the Solar System ABS ...
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... , One-Sided Mock Suns GEH14 Halo Displays Formed by Terrestrial Ice Crystals Anomalous Lunar Coronas Circumzenithal Arc and Black Band GEI OBSERVER-CENTERED PHENOMENA GEI1 Puzzling Features of the Brocken Specter GEI2 Heligenschein GEI3 Rotating Spokes about the Shadow of One's Head Sylvanshine Snow Sparkles GEL LOW-SUN PHENOMENA GEL1 Puzzling Features of the Green Flash GEL2 Anomalous Diverging Rays at Sunset and Sunrise GEL3 Color Phenomena and the Earth's Shadow on the Sky GEL4 Abnormal Refraction Phenomena with Astronomical Objects... GEL5 Anomalous Aspects of the Krakatoa Sunsets GEL6 The Alpine Glow... GEL7 Spectral Dispersion near the Sea's Surface GEL8 Low-Sun Landscape Fluorescence GEL9 Low-Sun Spectral Bows GEL10 Low-Sun Shadow Bands GEL11 The Second Purple Light GEL12 Moving Patches of Light on the Horizon Jumping Stars Post- ... TIDES GHS1 Sun-Dominated Tides GHS2 Sea and Lake Seiches... GHS3 Spectacular Tidal Bores GHS4 Diurnal, Triple, and Quadruple Tides GHS5 Long-Period Tides of Unexpected Strengths GHS6 Tides That Precede the Moon Extraordinary Tsunamis Tsunami Cycles GHT OCEAN TURBULENCE AND CIRCULATION PHENOMENA GHT1 Extraordinary Deep Circulation Events GHT2 Sonar-Detected Subsurface Oceanic Structures GHT3 Nonvolcanic Underwater Eruptions GHT4 Anomalous El Ninos GHT5 The Guinea Tide GHT6 Energy Transfer to Hurricanes GHT7 Oceanic Rings and Eddies GHT8 Large-Scale Oceanic Chemical Anomalies Deep-Sea Storms Curious Drifts Gas-Hydrate Blowouts Great Whirlpools and Vortices The Gibraltar Dam Oceanic Megaplumes Gulf-Stream Reversal Oceanic Dead Zones Organized Structures in Bubble Clouds North Atlantic Oscillations El Ninos Correlated with Seismicity GHW REMARKABLE WAVE PHENOMENA GHW1 Unexplained Solitary Waves GHW2 Periodic Bands of Waves GHW3 Sudden, Unexpected Onset of High ...
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... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 127: Jan-Feb 2000 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Nuclear bombs will not save the earth!Not too long ago, geologists adamantly denied that there were any large meteor craters pockmarking our planet. Now, they find 100-kilometer craters on a regular basis. And scientists are casting worried looks at those near-earth asteroids, knowing that one day one will be on a collision course. Not to worry, say the modern-day Technocrats, we will launch nucleararmed rockets that will nudge such cosmic threats into harmless trajectories. These Pollyannas are presumptious. They assume that asteroids are hard, cohesive objects that will be shoved aside by a few megatons of explosive energy. There are two ... wrong with this idea, and these reveal how radically our ideas about the nature of asteroids have changed in just 10 years. First, most astronomers will now agree that asteroids are orbiting rubble piles rather than monolithic objects. For example, the near-earth asteroid Mathilde, 53 kilometers in diameter, has a density of only 1.3 grams/cubic centimeter. Its porosity must be greater than 50%. It is not a hard, coherent object. Instead of a bullet, it is more like a cloud of shotgun pellets. It would be hard to divert all this debris with a nuclear blast. To make matters worse, asteroids like Mathilde are stickier than a cloud of buckshot. This fact is deduced from photos of asteroids showing many to be marked by huge craters. ...
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