Baptistina family

Baptistina family

The Baptistina family is an asteroid family that was likely produced by the breakup of an asteroid 170 km (110 miles) across 160 million years ago following an impact with a smaller body. The largest presumed remnant of this parent asteroid is 298 Baptistina.

Many mountain-sized fragments from the collision would have leaked into the inner solar system through orbital resonances with Mars and Jupiter, causing a prolonged series of asteroid impacts between 100 and 50 million years ago. The Baptistina "family" may consist of uncommon carbonaceous chondrite asteroids and meteoroids in similar orbits. Chromium concentrations in 65-million-year-old sediment layers at the K–T boundary on Earth suggest that the impactor that gouged out Chicxulub Crater belonged to this group. [cite journal| last=Bottke|first= WF|coauthors= Vokrouhlický D Nesvorný D.|year=2007|title=An asteroid breakup 160 Myr ago as the probable source of the K/T impactor|journal=Nature| volume= 449|pages=48–53|doi=10.1038/nature06070] [cite web| url=http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/9588922.html| title=Asteroids Smash, Dinosaurs Duck| author=Govert Schilling ("Sky & Telescope")| accessdate=September 5| accessyear=2007| ] It has been speculated that the impactor that produced the lunar crater Tycho 108 million years ago was also a member of the group.

References

External links

* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6980468.stm (BBC News) "Space pile-up 'condemned dinos'"] 5 September 2007


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • 298 Baptistina — Minor Planet | name=298 Baptistina discoverer=Auguste Charlois discovery date=September 9, 1890 designations= category=Main belt epoch=30 January, 2005 (JD 2453400.5) semimajor=338.683 Gm (2.264 AU) perihelion=306.285 Gm (2.047 AU)… …   Wikipedia

  • Flora family — The Flora family of asteroids is a large grouping of S type asteroids in the inner main belt, whose origin and properties are relatively poorly understood at present. Roughly 4 5% of all main belt asteroids belong to this family.Because of its… …   Wikipedia

  • Chicxulub crater — Imaging from NASA s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission STS 99 reveals part of the 180 kilometer (112 mi) diameter ring of the crater; clustered around the crater s trough are numerous sinkholes, suggesting a prehistoric oceanic basin in… …   Wikipedia

  • Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event — Artist s rendering of bolide impact Badlands nea …   Wikipedia

  • Dinosaur — For other uses, see Dinosaur (disambiguation). Dinosaurs Temporal range: Late Triassic–Late Cretaceous, 231.4–65.5 Ma …   Wikipedia

  • Extinction event — …   Wikipedia

  • Tycho (crater) — Infobox Lunar crater caption = credit: NASA latitude = 43.3 N or S = S longitude = 11.2 E or W = W diameter = 85 km depth = 4.8 km colong = 12 eponym = Tycho BraheTycho is a prominent lunar impact crater located in the southern lunar highlands,… …   Wikipedia

  • William F. Bottke — William F. (Bill) Bottke is a planetary scientist specializing in asteroids. He works at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.EducationBottke received his undergraduate degrees, in physics and astrophysics, at the University of… …   Wikipedia

  • V-type asteroid — The spectra of the V type asteroids or Vestoids are similar to that of 4 Vesta, by far the largest asteroid in this class (hence the name). A large proportion have orbital elements similar to those of 4 Vesta, either close enough to be part of… …   Wikipedia

  • Impact crater — The prominent impact crater Tycho on the Moon. In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body. In most common usage,… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”