True to form, I made a silly typo.
I wrote: "Sun impacting asteroids or comets can be expected to cause
coronal mass injection just from their gravitationally induced
kinetic energy."
I should have said: "Sun impacting asteroids or comets can be
expected to cause coronal mass *ejections* (CMEs) just from their
gravitationally induced kinetic energy."
Syringes don't come that big, though there is indeed a large
energetic mass injection.
Objects from outside our galaxy, say part of the Sagittarius Dwarf
Galaxy, can have many orders of magnitude more kinetic energy per
gram. The Cambrian extinction may be the first time our solar system
was significantly gravitationally affected by the Sagittarius Dwarf
Galaxy, which could have perturbed the Ort cloud. The extinction
intervals have been moderately regular since. Looks like we are
overdue for another. The extinction intervals may be a result of
separate galactic body interaction in the galactic collision which is
occurring.
Just thought I'd inject a little levity. Sigh.
Best regards,
Horace Heffner
http://www.mtaonline.net/~hheffner/
