Record heat from space rock impact

• Autores: Aylin Woodward
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 3143, 2017, pág. 8
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • When space debris crashes into Earth, the impact creates hellishly hot temperatures in the collision zone. Now clues left behind in the Mistastin Lake crater in Labrador, Canada, which is 28 kilometers across, are revealing just how hot the impact site became. Nicholas Timms at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, and his team found that the crater was once hot enough to transform the common mineral zircon into gem-like cubic zirconia. The zircon acts as a thermometer, because the minimum temperature necessary for this transformation is 2370 °C. Timms's team traced the zircon's history back to the point of impact, about 38 million years ago