News news:  SpaceRef.com posted yesterday an edition of David Morrison's NEO News E-mail newsletter in which Morrison reviews recent news coverage on the K/T and end-Permian extinction controveries, meteor fires, impact rates, and ultra-dark comets.

“ Dinosaur fossils, which are relatively rare, do not define the mass extinction boundary; that is precisely marked in the marine fossil record . . . as well as by the global layer of extraterrestrial material and shocked quartz. ”

“ While any one impact proposal might be true (as a statistical fluke), it is hard to believe that several of these stories are correct [as they are] unexpected from the known average impact rates, which are based on NEO observations as well as the long-term cratering history of the Earth and Moon. ”

This last quote refers to recent claims of newly discovered impact fields in Antarctica, Bavaria, and Italy. Not mentioned is a report of a large discovery in Egypt (“Multiple impacts”).

“ When we consider the entire problem . . . it becomes clear that there is not a large population of stealth comets to worry us. ”

The Asteroid/Comet Connection's
daily news journal about
asteroids, comets, and meteors

Today's issue status: done

• News briefs – news news & meteor news
  panel 2 – Deep Impact news, Mars comet impact? & radar news + science & politics
• Risk monitoring – JPL has removed 2004 UV1

<Yesterday|Tomorrow> Report news here [alt]

About the publisher Space news links

See news links about ultra-dark comets. Morrison is a NASA astrobiologist, an astronomer, and chair of the International Astronomical Union's Working Group on NEOs, but his NEO News is an independent work.

Meteor news:  The Murray Valley Standard of South Australia reports today that a daylight fireball “crossed over the Murraylands at 10.25am on Friday” (apparently last Friday). It was reported by Tony Beresford as “seen in areas from Renmark to Adelaide.” It left a trail, and a sonic boom “was heard at Renmark and Gumeracha.”

more news >>

<< continued from panel 1

Deep Impact news:  Deep Impact has posted its October newsletter, in which the only new info is an interview with Rick Grammier, JPL's project manager for this comet impact mission. (The other links are from October 18th news about the spacecraft arriving at Kennedy Space Center for launch in late December.)

Mars comet impact?  A University of Michigan news item from yesterday at EurekAlert reports that, besides suspected subsurface hydrothermal processes or even living methanogens, a comet impact could be a less likely explanation for the presence of methane detected in Mars' atmosphere.

Radar news  The Friday Daily Orbit Update MPEC reports observation of binary NEA 66063 1998 RO1 on October 6th by radar from Arecibo in Puerto Rico. See also brief news mentions October 14th and 7th and September 22nd.

Science & politics:  The Los Alamos, New Mexico Monitor has an item from yesterday telling of some strong opinions about science in U.S. politics presented by Russell Schweickart, Apollo astronaut and chair of the B612 Foundation for planetary defense.

Risk monitoring 29 Oct.

The Friday Daily Orbit Update (DOU) MPEC has new observations of 2004 UV1 from the Siding Spring Survey (SSS) in Australia from yesterday, adding 0.122-day to the original 2.967-day discovery and confirmation observing arc. But, more importantly, the DOU also has observations from SSS on September 18th, 36.784 days before the discovery of this kilometer-size object. And this made short work of 2004 UV1, which was announced and posted with impact solutions yesterday, and today JPL has removed all solutions.