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magazine / oct09
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October 2009 issue |
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Memories of Jupiter
A pile of galactic rock that failed as a planet becomes a star on Earth
By Steven Fick and Dan Ray
On Nov. 20, 2008, at 5:26 p.m., MST, a 10-tonne fragment of an alien world streaked into the
Earth’s atmosphere 85 kilometres above western Saskatchewan. As many as
100,000 people witnessed the meteor’s final incandescent moments as it shattered under intense heat and pressure
into thousands of glowing ruins. When it was over, the debris lay scattered across 100 square kilometres of prairie,
with the first fragments found in a picturesque valley known as Buzzard Coulee.
The fireball’s fate had been decided millions of years before that chilly November late
afternoon, however, thanks to the biggest bully in our solar system, Jupiter.
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| Click to enlarge |
Back in the sun’s early days, when smouldering gas, dust and molten rock still littered
the vast stretches of space surrounding it, Earth, Mercury, Venus and Mars were not the
only planets struggling to form. Another planet, situated between Mars and Jupiter,
fought to pull itself into a cohesive sphere from a collection of fragments. But every time
Jupiter swooped by, its intense gravitational field rattled the wannabe planet until nothing
was left but a chaotic field of space rocks.
“Jupiter’s influence liberated this fragment from the asteroid belt millions of years ago
and helped send it into its orbit around the sun,” says Alan Hildebrand, coordinator of
the Canadian Fireball Reporting Centre at the University of Calgary.
Since that time, the rump of an ill-fated planet careened around the sun and skipped
repeatedly over the Earth’s orbital path until, finally, the two met in a fiery embrace,
creating a treasure trove for scientists and rockhounds alike.
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