Flower of the Sky
SKU:
£0.85
£0.85
Unavailable
per item
The Great Comet of 1811 was a spectacular sight, visible for seventeen months, and for much of that period with the naked eye. It was bigger than the sun and flourished a tail of 120 million miles long. Viewed from certain latitudes it was permanently visible and appeared to be hurtling towards earth. Its' orbit takes 3065 years, and so it is not due in our environs again until 4876, or thereabouts.
Comets have often been regarded as portents of catastrophe. An unusually bright comet appeared in 1066 and is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry following the Norman victory over King Harold.
An asteroid or comet impact on the earth is now generally accepted as the cause of the great extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, which included the dinosaurs. The impact of a ten mile wide object would release energy a billion times greater than that from the atomic explosions on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the consequences would have been catastrophic.
The possibility of such an event in the future cannot be ruled out. With its' attendant global fire storms, radiation, dust cloud and ocean acidification it should be quite an experience. I don t want to sound pessimistic but...
Comets have often been regarded as portents of catastrophe. An unusually bright comet appeared in 1066 and is depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry following the Norman victory over King Harold.
An asteroid or comet impact on the earth is now generally accepted as the cause of the great extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period 66 million years ago, which included the dinosaurs. The impact of a ten mile wide object would release energy a billion times greater than that from the atomic explosions on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the consequences would have been catastrophic.
The possibility of such an event in the future cannot be ruled out. With its' attendant global fire storms, radiation, dust cloud and ocean acidification it should be quite an experience. I don t want to sound pessimistic but...