If a large planetoid hurled through the solar system and came near enough to Earth?
Question:
Could it be sufficiently catastrphic to cause an event as major as Noah's flood?
Answer:
Just to give u an idea... I recently visited the NASA sight and they showed a 2.5inch meteorite hitting the moon.. it left a14meter
crater..
If a planetoid came near Earth one of 2 things will happen:
1) It's trajectory will pass close to Earth, Earth's gravity will change it's course, and it will continue off in another direction. Earth would be almost totally unaffected.
2) It will impact Earth. If this happens, 1 of 2 things will happen:
1) It will hit a land mass, leaving a large crater and creating a bloodly big cloud of dust and debris that will eventually settle.
2) It will impact a water mass, creating a massive tidal wave similar to that seen in New York on the movie "The Day After Tommorow". Eventually the waters will recede. The size, composition and velocity of the planetoid defines the severity of the outcome. It is highly unlikely anyone on Earth will see it coming by any more than a few hours before impact, and all the rockets in the world would have no effect on a planetoid of significant size, and it is likely to be moving at a speed several times that of Earth.
Noahs flood is a myth with no teeth, since all the H2O on the planet, in all its forms, is not enough to cover every land mass currently above the surface. It never is or was possible for such an event to occur. none of the other catastophies you've mentioned come close to possible.
If it came near enough, (BOOM.) That would be us yeah?
Well, I see you like the word 'sophomoric'.
One could answer this 'what if' scenario pretty much arbitrarily. Stipulate the conditions, describe the effects. Why?
If a iron/nickel cored 'planetoid' with a significant gravitation field existed and was 'hurled' past the Earth at extremely close range, but at a speed great enough to escape capture, plenty of things might happen. If, if, if...
Didn't happen. 11,000 years ago, ice sheets were on the retreat, homo sapiens was spreading into the Americas, etc. Nothing extraordinary in the geologic record.
No Noah, no global flood, no planetoid near miss.
This is the answer I gave earlier:
It would have to be an extremely large planetoid coming very, very close. Stop and think about it. It's already happening. The moon is a large planetoid, it's 1/6 the size of the earth. It's also very close at 139,000 miles or so. On an astromonical scale, that is close, indeed. The effects we see of from this "planetoid" are the tides of the oceans. There are also tides in the land masses, in fact, some scientists are considering the possibility that these land tides might help create earthquakes.
I still feel that is correct given your question. If you are asking about a COLLISION, not just a near miss, that's a different story. A collision with a large planetoid would very probably destroy all life on earth. It doesn't matter if it hits land or water. The terrific heat generated would burn what wasn't melted. It's also likely that most of the atmosphere would be blasted into space.
Nice question. I believe that if a giant planetoid came close to Earth that it could throw Earth enough out of it's orbit around the sun to extinguish life on Earth as we would be pushed out of the "Habitable zone" around our sun.
this is what caused many dissruptions or eras of life on earth and did you know that they believe the extinction of the dinosaurs actually was of what think and ask there are at least three distinct impacts that hit the earth from what I have learned and this theory is supported from the comet (shoemaker)impact that happened to jupiter just a few years back it broke up into 6 pieces before entering jupiters atmoshere another major theory is the spirals of the milkyway space matter created a great ice age when pangea still exsisted!it probably was a great event , enough to break the earth up like the shell of an egg
past thru taking matter with it (the moon).and did you know the moon is still traveling awayfrom the earth.aprx 1.25 billion years ago the math aprx 250,000 miles=
250,000x5280=ft per mile;=5,280 yrsx250,000=1.32 billion years ago thus the great oceans of sodium chloride
began before this there were only pools of water and potassium choride! that is why the oceans are toxic to us and potasium salts for hydration are essential!this also started the continental drifts
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