Re: CONCULTURE: First thoughts on Ayeri calendar system
From: | Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> |
Date: | Monday, November 15, 2004, 22:00 |
Quoting Sylvia Sotomayor <kelen@...>:
> If I understand correctly (and that's a big if), the moon filters out
> impactors by being in the way. It is rather big. The moon & Jupiter together
> are probably why we didn't have more large impacts in our evolutionary
> history.
Given the relative sizes and distances, the chance that an object that would
otherwise hit the Earth strikes the Moon en route is quite small. Even when
it's right in front of us, it covers less than 1/13 of the target surface we're
presenting! And while it can gravitationally deflect something from a collision
course, it can also deflect something that was gonna miss us onto one; it's not
clear to me that there would be any much differences in the incidence of these,
and for most would-be impactors it presumable makes no difference.
Andreas