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CU study provides new evidence ancient asteroid caused global firestorm on Earth

A new look at conditions after a Manhattan-sized asteroid slammed into a region of Mexico in the dinosaur days indicates the event could have triggered a global firestorm that would have burned every twig, bush and tree on Earth and led to the extinction of 80 percent of all Earth’s species, says a new University of Colorado Boulder study.

Led by Douglas Robertson of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, or CIRES, the team used models that show the collision would have vaporized huge amounts of rock that were then blown high above Earth’s atmosphere. The re-entering ejected material would have heated the upper atmosphere enough to glow red for several hours at roughly 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit — about the temperature of an oven broiler element — killing every living thing not sheltered underground or underwater. (more…)

Space Station to Host New Cosmic Ray Telescope

By Guest PostMarch 13, 2013Sciencealan watson, angela olinto, atmosphere, auger project, big bang, center, cosmic ray detector, cosmic ray telescope, decaying particles, delaware, earth atmosphere, earth based detectors, international project, iss, james cronin, japanese experiment module, light emissions, light speed, marshall space flight, NASA, nobel laureate, observatory in argentina, physicist john linsley, space station, stagg field, supermassive black holes, tennis ball, the universe, ultra high energy, university of chicago, university of leeds

UChicago’s Angela Olinto leads U.S. collaboration on international project

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has awarded $4.4 million to a collaboration of scientists at five United States universities and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to help build a telescope for deployment on the International Space Station in 2017.

The U.S. collaboration is part of a 13-nation effort to build the 2.5-meter ultraviolet telescope, called the Extreme Universe Space Observatory. UChicago Prof. Angela Olinto leads the U.S. collaboration. The telescope will search for the mysterious source of the most energetic particles in the universe, called ultra high-energy cosmic rays, from the ISS’s Japanese Experiment Module. The source of these cosmic rays has remained one of the great mysteries of science since physicist John Linsley discovered them more than 50 years ago. These cosmic rays consist of protons and other subatomic scraps of matter that fly through the universe at almost light speed. (more…)

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CU study provides new evidence ancient asteroid caused global firestorm on Earth

Space Station to Host New Cosmic Ray Telescope