♦ nivek ♦ Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Researchers: Asteroid destroyed Sodom & GomorrahFox News "Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that it recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across. The tablet, found by Henry Layard in the remains of the library in the royal place at Nineveh in the mid-19th century, is thought to be a 700 B.C. copy of notes made by a Sumerian astronomer watching the night sky. He referred to the asteroid as a 'white stone bowl approaching' and recorded it as it 'vigorously swept along.' Using computers to recreate the night sky thousands of years ago, scientists have pinpointed his sighting to shortly before dawn on June 29 in the year 3123 B.C." [editor's note: Of course, at the time it was easier to blame it on a "vengeful God," thereby providing many generations to come with hatespeech-fodder - SAT] (03/31/08) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,343674,00.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 god's shooting marbles at us again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Meanwhile, above Sodom and Gomorrah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 god's shooting marbles at us again! So that's how he lost them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thurisaz Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 Meanwhile, above Sodom and Gomorrah You are eeeeeeebil pal! But where did you get this mirror image? (For the non-geeks - that's warships of the Centauri republic bombarding their enemies' homeworld with asteroids in the goo' ol' show "Babylon 5"...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoustonHorn Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 [editor's note: Of course, at the timeit was easier to blame it on a "vengeful God," thereby providing many generations to come with hatespeech-fodder - SAT] Even if you could convince a fundy that this actually happened they're still going to believe it was God doing it. He just used a meteor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthOkkata Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 [editor's note: Of course, at the timeit was easier to blame it on a "vengeful God," thereby providing many generations to come with hatespeech-fodder - SAT] Even if you could convince a fundy that this actually happened they're still going to believe it was God doing it. He just used a meteor. True, but then you could ask them how the explosion turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt and how he, and his no longer virgin daughters, managed to escape being vaporized while being close enough to see the impact. Did God tell him about 'duck and cover'? I never suspected our cold war strategy had such ancient origins. Who knew it would really work? I wonder if he managed to kiss his own ass goodbye somehow? Maybe Lot and his daughters were into Yoga or something? At any rate, this seems to be pandering to them more than anything else. After all, what else would 'fire and brimstone' be? God must have been talking cryptically about a meteorite. Yeah, that's it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trashy Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 Here's what I don't get about that story. I did a Google search, and almost every single article related to this planisphere mentions both Sodom & Gomorrah *and* Kfels in Austria. IOW, they think the Sodom and Gomorrah legend was based on the original observation of an asteroid that landed in Europe. But I don't get it, because everything I've ever read from Bible 'scholars' points to a location somewhere in Palestine. I guess I just don't get mentioning Sodom, etc. in a story that is actually about Austria. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 Got some links for that Trasy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric_PK Posted April 3, 2008 Share Posted April 3, 2008 It sounds very plausible, except for a few things. Barringer Meteor Crater in Arizona is thought to be created by a 50 meter nickle-iron meterorite impacting at several kilometers/second. That produced a crater 4000 meters across and released energy equivalent to 2.5 megatons of TNT, and a hurricane-force shockwave to about 40 km of radius. That's a relatively small meteorite, and it made a big-ass crater that's easily visible today. An event with a half-mile asteroid - even moving at only a few kilometers/second, which it would get if it started at rest with the earth (unlikely for a lot of reasons) - isn't a white stone bowl sweeping across the sky. It's a fireball moving so fast you can barely track it and generating blasts far eclipsing a nuclear weapon, devastating a large area. The Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted April 4, 2008 Share Posted April 4, 2008 The? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroboros Posted April 4, 2008 Share Posted April 4, 2008 The End? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trashy Posted April 4, 2008 Share Posted April 4, 2008 Got some links for that Trasy? uh, links for what? The articles? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/03/31/kofels_asteroid/ http://www.addict3d.org/news/333353/Assyri...#39;%20asteroid etc., etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grandpa Harley Posted April 4, 2008 Share Posted April 4, 2008 Cheers. I wasn't being picky BTW, I just didn't know your google search criteria, thus I couldn't reproduce it myself. If the asteroid was a loosely agregated rocky slab, it would have ruptured on hitting the thicker atmosphere, thus there would have been an number of shards. S&G could well be affected by smaller lump of rock... The AZ crater still being so clear depends on a number of things 1) Angle the object hit at, the more oblique the less defined the hole 2) Local Geology. If it smack into mostly sand you don't get much more than a transient crater, lasting maybe 50 yeas (depending on local weather). After 1000 years, you have eroded green glass bits and not much more. You hit softish rock, you get something that looks like it was stolen from the moon for a geological age 3) Type of impacting body. Icy will air burst. Ice and rock with airburst and scatter low velocity lumps of rock, then depending on integirty of the rock, rocky types will air burst at different altitudes, again scatting low vel rock, up to hitting the ground. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hereticzero Posted April 4, 2008 Share Posted April 4, 2008 god's shooting marbles at us again! Hmmm.....if that is what happens when he shoots marbles.....what happens if he mastrubates......... Another Republican is created. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric_PK Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 I see how you can get a smaller crater - though even small bodies have enough energy to give you something really impressive. I don't see how you can get an asteroid impact to match the description. It's too fast and too loud and scary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 May the eye of Horus look upon you favorably Gramps. You used the word "oblique." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piprus Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 Uh...I a may be a four-square dummy, but...is there some basis to think that S and G ever existed in the first place, and that the whole damn thing wasn't just a folk-tale, like most of the OT? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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