From super storm Yasi (2nd Feb, Australia), earth quake devastating Christchurch (NZ) and now 8.9 Richter scale quake off Japan triggering Tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean like waves rippling across a swimming pool. Across Californian coast, a man lost his life, swept off by waves out on photo taking!
Huge ocean whirlpool, the boat caught in there was totally helpless!
Water so essential to support life as we know in every form, when charged with enormous energy can release such destructive power! For all we know, "know how" and technology, humans are completely at its mercy!
Whether air or water, can carry enormous amount of energy. The wavefront of the Tsunami, 10m high & tens of km long, reportedly at 800 km/hr. What! Compare to airliners cruising at subsonic speed under 1,000 km/hr., that's 80%.How much energy is out there!
A cubic meter of water weighs one ton. Tsunami that hit land with velocity reportedly at 60km/hr. The classical mechanics formula of kinetic energy E = 1/2 (mass x velocity^2). Wow.. it's the square of velocity that tells how much "mind-boggling" energy Tsunamis carry.
A learned friend once posed me a question: "What's pervasive throughout the universe?"
Its no other than "ENERGY".
How did Albert Einstein's came out with his genius formula e = mc^2 that relates energy to mass? It literally states the same.
A few billions years down the road, our Milky Way galaxy now on collision path with a much bigger one will come to head. Our galaxy will be torn apart, swallow up wholesale with the "Black Hole" at center of both galaxies merge to form a even bigger galaxy. That's power of Mother Nature at much higher order.
All life forms on earth will be extinct before that event occurs. Our very own sun is burning itself out too. With less mass, hence reducing gravity holding its gaseous mass as time passes on, it will swell to engulf the nearest planets including our mother Earth. Again, life forms will extinct before that occurs.
This is no science fiction, the odds are stacking up. Our existence is merely transient. The universe will carry on without us as passengers. It won't happen anytime soon. Even then folks, "live the moments" while it last!
2 comments:
How much energy is released when a meteor at the size of a peanut hit the earth's crater?
Do you know that the deepest and largest cave in the world that is located in Mexico is formed from a meteor?
I don't know about that. I am aware of the asteroid theory that could result in extinction of the dinosaurs. Is the crater you mentioned larger than this?
A crater, now worn down and partly under the ocean, was found along the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula and its creation coincides nicely with the K-T boundary. NASA scientists estimate that the asteroid that made Chicxulub Crater, as it is now known, would have been about 6 to 12 miles in diameter. The crater is about 130 miles across.
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