Word: cometted
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Other scientists, drawn into the fray by the Alvarez conjecture, have since suggested that a large comet might have similar consequences. Los Alamos Weapons Experts Stirling Colgate and Albert Petschek computed that a comet six miles in diameter hitting the earth would have an effect 100,000 to 1 million times as great as a large nuclear explosion, and would blow a 100-sq.-mi. hole in the atmosphere...
...somehow disrupting the solar system's asteroid belt. Trouble was, he conceded, he could not come up with a convincing orbit for the companion. Suddenly the Dutch-born Hut interrupted him with an alternative suggestion: Why not make the companion star travel through the thickest part of the comet-filled Oort cloud, rather than the asteroid belt? Muller immediately saw that the problems he had had with asteroids disappeared when he substituted comets as the culprits. As he recalls, "We wrote the first draft of our paper that...
Although Louisiana Astrophysicist Whitmire does not dismiss the death star theory, he thinks that his Planet X theory of periodic comet showers has greater potential. For one thing, a still undiscovered planet has a distinct advantage over Nemesis as a promising candidate because astronomers have been predicting its existence since the late 19th century, first as the ninth planet and then as the tenth. Reason: its existence and gravitational pull might explain discrepancies in the movements of Neptune and Uranus. Even the discovery of Pluto in 1930 did not fulfill the gravitational force needed to justify Uranus' meanderings, and some...
...certain only that a celestial intruder was responsible. Some argue that it was an asteroid as large as 500 ft. across and weighing 7 million tons, which rapidly heated as it entered the earth's atmosphere and exploded about five miles above ground. Others believe it was a small comet. Whatever the cause, the destructive power of the object from space rivaled that of a very large nuclear warhead; scientists gauge the explosion at twelve megatons...
...Comets are more mysterious. Unlike asteroids, which reveal themselves in the form of meteorites that can be pried from the ground and analyzed in laboratories, comets have left no known remnants on earth; they have been studied only from afar--through telescopes. (Scientists hope to unlock more cometary secrets when Soviet, Japanese and the European Space Agency probes fly past Halley's comet in March...