José Angel Gutiérrez ● The Sky is Falling: Part II ● Our Voices/Nuestras Voces

The Sky is Falling: Part II

José Angel Gutiérrez

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In Part I, I discussed the damage and pollution being caused by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and many other countries with the satellites they have in space. These satellites stop functioning, some are hit by other debris in space and fall apart, and others do hit each other when they go off orbit. They are necessary for global communication. But so is protection for us earthlings watching this debris coming down. Fortunately, most of this space garbage does burn up before hitting earth; but not all. There must be international regulation implemented to clean up space.

Asteriods

Now, after Artemis II’s around-the-moon trip, we learn that giant asteroids are also out there in orbits and could hit earth. Just like Artemis II could get out of the earth’s orbit and swing out to get into the moon’s orbit, so can an asteroid which usually are in orbit with the sun. Space scientists observe these asteroids constantly to monitor their orbit travel; just in case one swings out of orbit and domes in our direction. According to them, there are 2,533 potentially dangerous asteroids out there which could hit earth.

These asteroids are dangerous because they are much larger and do come close to earth. In 2013, an asteroid burned out just over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk at an altitude of about 18.6 miles. It did not hit the city, yet it caused much damage miles and miles away. It was brighter than the sun at 9:20 in the morning that day. It was 30 times more powerful than the bomb the US dropped over Hiroshima,

Japan. The hot cloud of dust, gas, and particles went out over 16 miles from Chelyabinsk. Some 1,491 people were injured from the shock wave and blast, mostly from broken glass of windows blown apart moments after the superbolide’s flash. This was a very rare event. In 2020, another one flew over French Polynesia some 230 miles up. On December 27, 2024, scientists realized that a huge asteroid about the size of a 30 story building they saw, Asteroid 2024 YR4, has just passed earth on the 25th.. YR4 will come back around in 2032 on December 22nd. This past year on September 1st, Asteroid 2025 TF, flew over Antarctica some 266 miles up. A new prediction is about asteroid Apophis that was thought to hit the earth on April 13, 2029. Now, the revision is it might hit earth but in 2129, a hundred years from now. And if not, then maybe again in 2036 or 2068. That is the time it takes for its orbit to come around. Whew!

Chicxulub

This asteroid did hit Earth some 65 million years ago. My family and I found the site inadvertently when traveling from Merida, Yucatan, México up to Progreso on the coast. Driving down the malecon in Progreso we saw a sign for the Museo del Meteriorito. We were intrigued enough to go see the museum. The name and sign should be about the asteroid not a meteor. The museum is worth visiting. The actual location of the hit by the asteroid, not a meteor, was in Chicxulub further down the road but not visible. The asteroid hit with such impact that what may remain is still buried under the small city several miles down past the Earth’s crust.

When that happened so many years ago, that part of the world went dark for years given the vapor, dust, water, slime, mud, and other debris uprooted and flying through the air. The second shock wave, the tsunami, wiped out what vegetation was left. Without sunlight the crushed vegetation did not revive and died and so did the animals dependent on that food supply. That, according to the Alvarez hypothesis, is why and how the dinosaurs and other animals died in this part of Central and North America.

In 1951, inadvertently, PEMEX, the government-owned Mexican petroleum company, while drilling for oil off the Campeche Bank just north of the Yucatan Peninsula hit fused rocks and quartz minerals. Until 1991, this find was left in PEMEX files. Back in 1980, Luis Alvarez and his son, Walter, had been examining Earth rocks in Gubbio, Italia and published a paper on their findings. Walter published a book later, T.rex and the Crater of Doom, (Princeton University Press, 1997), in which he posit that a huge crater hit this area where the town of Chicxulub, Yucatan, México is now located. In 2017, another book chronicles the story of Luis and Walter Alvarez finding that a huge asteroid had hit Earth on that spot in the Yucatan Peninsula 65 million years ago: CHICXULUB The Impact and Tsunami: The Story of the Largest Known Asteroid to Hit the Earth (Springer International).