PHYS 1040 - 001

Angela Pecsi.
March 2014.
Conversation Assignment
Where did the dinosaur-killing asteroid come from?
The theme for the conversation was: the scientists are confident a large asteroid
crashed into Earth approximately 65 million years ago, leading to the extinction of
dinosaurs and some other life forms on our planet; they do not know exactly where the
asteroid came from or how it made its way to Earth.
According to the theory, Baptistina asteroid crashed into another asteroid in the
main belt between Mars and Jupiter about 160 million years ago. The collision sent
shattered pieces as big as mountains flying. One of those pieces was believed to have
impacted Earth, causing the dinosaurs' extinction.
With the new infrared observations from WISE, astronomers say Baptistina was
not the responsible party and may finally be ruled out.
I organized this conversation seeking an interesting topic, getting visual aids, and
writing several questions in order to focus attention on the subject. The conversation
turned out nice for participants.
For spring break we had a family reunion at my aunt's house in Ogden and talked
on this topic of astronomy for about two hours. The group consisted of five adults and
four children. I chose my uncle, a cousin, and my grandma, basing on their age differences
to compare their points of view; others were observers who gave also their opinions
respecting to the subject since they looked interested.
The presentation consisted of watching a video downloaded from YouTube called
KT Asteroid & Dinosaurs Extinction. The people were interested paying attention to it
and they made comments; I think the visual content is very important to capture the
attention of the audience.
Then, having given a copy of the articles of NASA and Wikipedia, I chose to make
conversation with each of the chosen people and read aloud while everyone was still
reading these short articles to sustain attention and avoid lacking of interest on the topic
of the discussion.
The short articles were two in the website of the NASA: Origin of Dinosaur-Killing
Asteroid Remains a Mystery and Mission Overview and an article on Wikipedia:
Baptistina family.
The issues that were discussed during the conversation were the following:
- Do you believe in the theory that an asteroid killed the dinosaurs?
- Can you give an explanation to this response?
- What do you think about the statement of NASA saying that it was not the asteroid
Baptistina which caused the death of the dinosaurs?
The plan of the conversation was followed, first, the video that had a duration of
seven minutes, in which all the participants demonstrated much interest and commented
about it, then, I read the items, and finally, asked the questions to each participant.
In the first question: Do you believe in the theory that an asteroid killed the
dinosaurs? All respondents agreed that an asteroid or a group of them were responsible
for the death of the dinosaurs.
The second question: Can you give an explanation to this response? They said it
was because of several reasons, one, by craters that have been studied by scientists to
indicate that very large asteroids collided millions of years ago with the Earth and caused
a big explosion that burned trees, darkened land, and caused air pollution, another reason
is that the asteroid had crashed into the sea and its microorganisms contaminated water
causing the dinosaurs disease.
The third question: What do you think about the statement of NASA saying that it
was not the asteroid Baptistina which caused the death of the dinosaurs? All respondents
commented that man has acquired new knowledge and they support the side that
sciences results have the evidence to prove this theory, NASA has built new technology
such as the spacecraft WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer) to study for over a year
thousands of asteroids and consequently, prove that it was not the Baptistina asteroids
impact with the Earth in the Gulf of Mexico that caused the death of the dinosaurs.
After doing this astronomy conversation, Where did the dinosaur-killing asteroid
come from?, my family and I reflected that man's intelligence and his natural curiosity
about all the unknown that the space has to offer us is what makes people to work each
day on creating tools to make new discoveries and update theories that help to
understand the phenomena that happened and what will happen on Earth.
Astronomy could seem complicated and can be, nevertheless, there exist ways to
make the simplest explanation of the phenomena of space for ordinary people to learn
and understand.
It was a great experience to plan and lead the conversation, learning at the same
time on a very old theme that still hasnt an answer but I am sure we will find someday.
The participants felt satisfied by the overall conversation. I was impressed by the
fact that the people showed more interest than I though they would do, because I had the
notion that not everybody would pay much interest in dedicating time for helping me with
this assignment; and the things we all learned about this theme were also surprising and
fascinating, as described in the articles and the video. I wouldnt make too many changes
if I had to repeat this task because there was a positive feedback from all the contributors,
but something I would do different is to plan it for a larger group of people and any
person who is interested would be welcomed, in an ample space, and making it more
formal, with the required experience already adquired for a successful end result.
Bibliography:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/news/wise20110919.html#mainconte
nt
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/WISE/mission/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubBebEywNmE
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptistina_family