| Rock Talks In July 1994, humans witnessed for the first time in history what before they could only imagine: the collision between a comet and a planet. When Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter at 130,000 miles an hour, it unleashed an energy equal to the explosion of thousands upon thousands of nuclear bombs. This is the world of Killer Rocks from Outer Space. This world seems like science fiction, but it is well-documented fact, as Steve has learned from countless interviews with many leading scientists who have studied asteroids, comets, meteorites and impact craters. They have told him of a rock from outer space that crash-landed 280 million years ago in the area now known as O’Hare International Airport. The impact left a crater, now deeply buried, that measures nearly five miles across. They have taken him to the Kentland quarry on the Indiana-Illinois border, where another rock from outer space left an even larger crater millions of years earlier. And they have allowed him to follow their progress from behind the scenes as they sent space probes deep into space to get an up-close look at comets and asteroids. Steve shares with his audiences these and other true stories about Killer Rocks from Outer Space, the only natural distaster that scientists can predict. Most recently Steve has spoken to the seventh and eighth-graders of Barrington Middle School in Chicago's northwest suburbs. He also has made presentations to the Ryerson Astronomical Society at the University of Chicago, at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights, Ill., to the Calumet Astronomical Society in Indiana, and at Ridge Academy in Chicago. For more information about Steve's illustrated rock talks, contact him at steve(at)mrmeteor.com. Below: From the pages of Killer Rocks from Outer Space, artist Don Davis's portrayal of an asteroid impact.
|
|
