The Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News 07JUL2013

International Cometary Workshop: Comets as Tracers of Solar System Formation and EvolutionSolar System Formation and Evolution

International Cometary Workshop
Comets as Tracers of Solar System Formation and Evolution
July 9-11, 2013
Toulouse, France
The workshop will cover topics ranging from the dynamical and chemical
evolution of the solar nebula during formation, to the techniques for
measuring the composition of comets. Invited speakers include some of
the community leaders in cometary science, measurements and technology
development. We will discuss the role that Rosetta measurements will
play in understanding the origin of Solar System bodies, and what future
missions to comets are being planned. Abstract submissions for posters
and for talks are encouraged, although the number of talks available is
limited in order to keep the meeting to three days. Register early, as
space is limited to no more than 60 participants! There will be a
special issue of the journal Planetary and Space Science devoted to the
works presented at this meeting. ... more

http://icw.space.swri.edu/index.htm

-Sponsors
<http://www.swri.org> <http://www.esa.int/ESA>
<http://www.cnes.fr/web/CNES-en/7114-home-cnes.php>
<http://www.irap.omp.eu/> <http://www.isae-space.com/>
<http://www.univ-tlse3.fr/>

TRAIL DUST Trail Dust: Southwestern sky has been backdrop for heavenly ...

Santa Fe New Mexican.com
Trail Dust: Southwestern sky has been backdrop for heavenly fireworks. The annual Perseidmeteor shower, seen from La Cienega on Aug. 12, 2009, brings up to 100 meteors per hour blazing across the sky as the Earth passes through the dust trail of Comet ...

Meteor showers visible in late July
Inquirer.net
MANILA, Philippines—The last days of July will provide early risers a “nice display of meteors on moonless mornings,” according to the astronomical division of the state weather bureau. From July 28 to 31, the Southern Delta Aquarids meteor shower ...

2013 THE Year of Meteors, Asteroids, Comets, and MORE!!

ASTEROIDS MAY HAVE ACCELERATED LIFE ON EARTH 21MAY09

NASA STUDY SHOWS ASTEROIDS MAY HAVE ACCELERATED LIFE ON EARTH

20MAY09 WASHINGTON --

A NASA-funded study indicates that an intense asteroid bombardment nearly 4 billion years ago may not have sterilized the early Earth as completely as previously thought. The asteroids, some the size of Kansas, possibly even provided a boost for early life. The study focused on a particularly cataclysmic occurrence known as the Late Heavy Bombardment, or LHB.

This event occurred approximately 3.9 billion years ago and lasted 20 to 200 million years. In a letter published in the May 21 issue of Nature magazine titled "Microbial Habitability of the Hadean Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment," Oleg Abramov and Stephen J. Mojzsis, astrobiologists at the University of Colorado's Department of Geological Sciences, report on the results of a computer modeling project designed to study the heating of Earth by the bombardment.

Results from their project show that while the Late Heavy Bombardment might have generated enough heat to sterilize Earth's surface, microbial life in subsurface and underwater environments almost certainly would have survived.

"Exactly when life originated on Earth is a hotly debated topic," said Michael H. New, the astrobiology discipline scientist and manager of the Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

"These findings are significant because they indicate that if life had begun before the LHB or some time prior to 4 billion years ago, it could have survived in limited refuges and then expanded to fill our world."

"Our new results point to the possibility life could have emerged about the same time that evidence for our planet's oceans first appears," said Mojzsis, principal investigator of the project.

A growing scientific consensus is that during our solar system's formation, planetary bodies were pummeled by debris throughout the Late Heavy Bombardment. A visual record of the event is preserved in the form of the scarred face of our moon. On Earth, all traces of the bombardment appear to have been erased by rock recycling forces like weathering, volcanoes or other conditions that cause the crust to move or change. Surface habitats for microbial life on early Earth would have been destroyed repeatedly by the bombardment.

However, at the same time, impacts could have created subsurface habitats for life, such as extensive networks of cracks or even hydrothermal vents. Any existing microbial life on Earth could have found refuge in these habitats. If life had not yet emerged on Earth by the time of the bombardment, these new subsurface environments could have been the place where terrestrial life emerged.

"Even under the most extreme conditions we imposed on our model, the bombardment could not have sterilized Earth completely," said Abramov, lead author of the paper. "Our results are in line with the scientific consensus that hyperthermophilic, or 'heat-loving,' microbes could have been the earliest life forms on Earth, or survivors from an even more ancient biosphere.

The results also support the potential for the persistence of microbial biospheres on other planetary bodies whose surfaces were reworked by the bombardment, including Mars." NASA's Astrobiology Program's Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program and the NASA Astrobiology Institute at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., through its support of NASA's Postdoctoral Program, provided funding for this research.

The Astrobiology Program supports research into the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life on Earth and the potential for life elsewhere.

For more information about NASA's astrobiology activities, visit:

http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/

May 20, 2009

Dwayne Brown Headquarters, Washington 202-358-1726 dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Jim Scott University of Colorado, Boulder 303-492-3114 jim.scott@colorado.edu

RELEASE: 09-111

Mass Extinctions- Medea Hypothesis 19MAY09

Peter Ward on mass extinctions
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/peter_ward_on_mass_extinctions.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lYN_lXU9PA

Speakers Peter Ward: Paleontologist
http://www.ted.com/index.php/speakers/peter_ward.html

The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? by Peter Ward
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8855.htmlhttp://press.princeton.edu/titles/8855.html#TOC“

Using the latest discoveries from the geological record, he argues that life might be its own worst enemy.”

“According to the Medea hypothesis, it does. Ward demonstrates that all but one of the mass extinctions that have struck Earth were caused by life itself. He looks at our planet's history in a new way, revealing an Earth that is witnessing an alarming decline of diversity and biomass--a decline brought on by life's own "biocidal" tendencies.”