9/28/2023 0 Comments Comet deep ocean waves![]() Wind waves in the ocean are also called ocean surface waves and are mainly gravity waves, where gravity is the main equilibrium force. They have been generated elsewhere and sometimes previously. Swell consists of wind-generated waves that are not significantly affected by the local wind at that time. A noteworthy example of this is waves generated south of Tasmania during heavy winds that will travel across the Pacific to southern California, producing desirable surfing conditions. After moving out of the area of fetch, wind waves are called swells and can travel thousands of kilometers. Wind waves will travel in a great circle route after being generated – curving slightly left in the southern hemisphere and slightly right in the northern hemisphere. When directly generated and affected by local wind, a wind wave system is called a wind sea. Wind waves on Earth range in size from small ripples to waves over 30 m (100 ft) high, being limited by wind speed, duration, fetch, and water depth. Waves in the oceans can travel thousands of kilometers before reaching land. The contact distance in the direction of the wind is known as the fetch. In fluid dynamics, a wind wave, or wind-generated water wave, is a surface wave that occurs on the free surface of bodies of water as a result of the wind blowing over the water's surface. ![]() A man standing next to large ocean waves at Porto Covo, Portugal Video of large waves from Hurricane Marie along the coast of Newport Beach, California For other uses, see Ocean Wave (disambiguation). These events serve as reminders that motion in our seemingly tranquil universe can unleash great violence with little warning."Ocean wave" redirects here. And just the other day, in cosmic terms, a vast stretch of forest near the Tunguska River in Siberia was flattened in 1908 when some object-probably a small comet-detonated in the air with the force of a 10-megaton bomb. A mile-wide crater in the Arizona desert bears witness to an impact 50,000 years ago by a rock as wide as a football field. However, an asteroid did sneak through 65 million years ago, gouging a deep hole near Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula and probably dooming the dinosaurs. Without Jupiter's tendency to sweep aside intruders such as incoming comets, Earth almost certainly would be more heavily bombarded. In one of the ironies of nature, Jupiter's disruptive presence in our solar system is also a blessing. Scientists think the destroyer came from space, probably a small comet that detonated in midair. If any of the 12 largest pieces had struck Earth, the human race probably would have been obliterated.Ī blast with the force of a 10-megaton bomb flattened trees in the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908. The seventh fragment exploded with an energy equivalent to 6 million megatons of TNT-nearly 1,000 times the power of all the nuclear weapons on Earth-and created a fireball 2,000 miles high. ![]() Several of them carved dark, long-lived scars in the atmosphere while blasting plumes of gas thousands of miles into space. The fragments took a week to slam into the planet, one after the other. By July 1994 the chain was over a million miles long. Astronomers eagerly set up their telescopes for the first recorded collision of objects in the solar system. Orbital calculations revealed that these pieces would plow directly into Jupiter on their next pass by the planet. The planet's intense tidal forces had torn the comet into 21 pieces, each about a mile wide, and stretched them into a 100,000-mile-long chain that looked like a string of pearls (page 58). They and their colleagues soon realized that the comet, named Shoemaker-Levy 9, was trapped by Jupiter's gravitational field. In 1993 the planetary scientists Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and the astronomer David Levy discovered a comet that looked strangely flattened. If you think that's frivolous, you need look no further than Jupiter itself. Nevertheless, astronomers hope to spot most of the truly dangerous ones-those measuring a half mile across or more-by early in the twenty-first century. Finding them is no easy task because they are faint and move quickly across the sky. An impact of this magnitude would have created huge ocean waves and a global dust cloud that blocked sunlight for years.Īpproach it closely. Motion | Pages 54-55 | ( back to unlinked version)įormed by the impact of an asteroid or a small comet that smashed into Earth about 65 million years ago, the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula may measure nearly 200 miles across.
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