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Tiny Cosmic Missiles (1 Viewer)

Darren Davis

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I found this link on another board I frequent and found the article quite interesting. It's about 2 months old and I didn't find it posted here through search.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main...Fwnugg12. xml
Here's just the first part...
Earth punctured by tiny cosmic missiles
By Robert Matthews, Science Correspondent
(Filed: 12/05/2002)
FORGET dangers from giant meteors: Earth is facing another threat from outer space. Scientists have come to the conclusion that two mysterious explosions in the 1990s were caused by bizarre cosmic missiles.
The two objects were picked up by earthquake detectors as they tore through Earth at up to 900,000 mph. According to scientists, the most plausible explanation is that they were "strangelets", clumps of matter that have so far defied detection but whose existence was posited 20 years ago.
Formed in the Big Bang and inside extremely dense stars, strangelets are thought to be made from quarks - the subatomic particles found inside protons and neutrons. Unlike ordinary matter, however, they also contain "strange quarks", particles normally only seen in high-energy accelerators.
Strangelets - sometimes also called strange-quark nuggets - are predicted to have many unusual properties, including a density about ten million million times greater than lead. Just a single pollen-size fragment is believed to weigh several tons.
They are thought to be extremely stable, travelling through the galaxy at speeds of about a million miles per hour. Until now, all attempts to detect them have failed. A team of American scientists believes, however, that it may have found the first hard evidence for the existence of strangelets, after scouring earthquake records for signs of their impact with Earth.
...
[edit]Can a mod or any bigwig change it to "Cosmic" in the thread title? I type too fast sometimes.[/edit]
 

Max Leung

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Wow that's pretty cool...especially the fact they could detect it entering the Earth, and then EXITING the Earth a fraction of a second later.
 

Neil Joseph

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Just another problem with trying to shield deep space vehicles from all of the particles, rocks fargments that are traversing the heavens. I wonder what would happen if the Enterprise encountered such a fragment?
 

Julie K

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Interesting.

However, I have a real problem with this statement:
FORGET dangers from giant meteors
This is simply not true, and in fact the article then goes on to state that the impact of such matter on an inhabited area would be less than that of a meteor. This article is poor journalism.
 

BrianW

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Indeed. Although I find the subject of the article fascinating, Mr. Matthews presumes to think that we have the capacity to worry about only one type of disaster at a time and writes accordingly.

Two things come to mind:

1. What was the criteria used to identify impacts with these strangelets? According to the article,
seismic databases now automatically remove all signals not linked to earthquakes.
I understand that seismic events coincident with building demolition or some other known occurrence will be flagged as “Not An Earthquake.” But how do they know that seismic events caused by cosmic impacts are not actually earthquakes? And if they know they’re caused by cosmic impacts instead of earthquakes, why on earth would they want to delete such data?

Thanks, Darren, for bringing this article to our attention. I appreciate cool stuff like this.
 

BrianW

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One more thing:

The existence of this super dense strange matter is predicated on the existence of a sub-atomic particle we have not yet even seen. This strange quark is predicted to exist in order to satisfy symmetry requirements in the Standard Model Theory, but direct evidence of its existence has eluded us. According to theory, only this strange matter could retain its mass and stability at such a small size. (Neutronium, on the other hand, would need several stars’ worth of mass pressing down on it in order to remain stable, eliminating the possibility of tiny neutronium bullets.) That the Standard Model does not rule out the possibility of these cosmic bullets does not, however, mean they necessarily exist.

On the other hand, astronomers have recently detected a few ultra-high density stars that are denser than neutron stars, but not quite black holes. The only possibility remaining, according to the Standard Model, is that these stars be made of this new-fangled strange matter. Further exploration into what the Standard Model would predict about strange matter revealed that it could be stable at just about any size and mass, making possible the existence of these super dense, tiny cosmic bullets. In the face of not being able to attain the energy levels necessary to directly observe the strange quark, the discovery of these ultra-dense stars is actually considered to be compelling evidence of the particle’s existence.

And, skeptical as I am, I must confess that the Standard Model theory’s ability to accurately predict such things is pretty much 100% on the mark.
 

Darren Davis

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Thank you, BrianW. I always look forward to your posts as they are always interesting and informative.
 

Jack Briggs

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Small asteroids a few meters across can also cause atomic-like detonations in the upper atmosphere. The article itself, though, is not so hot. Journalists should write about that with which they are familiar.
 

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