Asteroids have rings, too?!

Wow, I think my head just exploded!  

Out between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune - orbits 10199 Chariklo, an asteroid-like object that's a little more than 90 miles in diameter.  It may be small, but Charriklo shares a feature similar to it's gas giant neighbors....rings.  

Astronomers think Chariklo has two flat, dense, thin rings, about 4.3 miles  and 2 miles in width, with a 5.5-mile gap between them.

Read the complete Pop Sci article HERE

Did all life on Earth Almost End Recently?

Remember hearing about that group of comets, back in August of 1883? They were so huge and coming in so close that folks were taking out comet insurance. Mexican astronomer José Bonilla, observed 447 objects passing in front of the sun over two days. But this huge amount of material could not be found by any other astronomers. Or even be seen, they suggested all form of fauna and flora that could have been miss read. What Bonilla observed were actually fragments of a massive, billion-ton comet, and the reason that no one else was able to observe the objects is that they passed so close to the Earth!

Calculations show that the ultra massive object passed between 300 to 5000 miles above the surface!!

From the Gizmodo article:

• The impact at Tunguska was by moderate estimations about 15 megatons, or 1,000 times more powerful than Hiroshima. 3,275 of those bombarding the planet over two days would likely be, as the authors of the paper put it, "an extinction event."
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