Word: meteorics
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Meteorites consist of pieces of cosmic matter which reach the Earth's surface. If the matter does not reach the surface, it is called a meteor. Meteors are the "shooting stars" seen in the night sky which result from the vaporization of bits of cosmic matter...
Such resurfacing has undoubtedly taken place in Venus' lowlands: earlier images of the planet showed vast areas that are remarkably free of craters. That would be easy to explain on a planet like Earth, where cratering from meteor strikes is erased by steady erosion. But while there is some evidence of wind erosion on Venus, the best explanation for the lack of cratering is periodic lava flows. Magellan has found direct evidence of such flows, including domelike upwellings and hardened streams of rock trailing down the sides of Venusian peaks. There are also signs of other geologic activity, including dramatic...
...have 1989FC land in the backyard. A 100-yd.- wide asteroid hitting the earth at a speed of nearly 50,000 m.p.h. could dig a crater a mile or so across and several hundred feet deep -- similar in size to a gaping hole in the Arizona earth, known as Meteor Crater, that was blasted out some 40,000 years ago. Such an impact today would be enough to wipe out a major population center...
...most spectacular example is the dying off of the great dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period (136 million to 65 million years ago). No one knows exactly what killed the dinosaurs, although a radical change in environmental conditions seems a likely answer. One popular theory is that a huge meteor crashed to earth and kicked up such vast clouds of dust that sunlight was obscured and plants destroyed. Result: the dinosaurs starved to death...
...most likely cause of their demise, said Bakker, touching on another dinosaur controversy, was not a meteor or a sudden temperature change, but a disease of epidemic proportions. "I see dinosaurs as not going out with a bang, but going out with diarrhoea," said Bakker...