HOME | DD

Description
More of my astronomical and space travel art can be seen in my DA "Space Art" gallery:

lexlothor.deviantart.com/galle…

I previously posted a picture of the ancient "Snowball Earth" as seen from the vantage point of a comet about to collide with it:

lexlothor.deviantart.com/art/I…

Around 650 million years ago the earth was entirely covered by ice. Known as the period of the "Snowball Earth" the seas were glazed in pack ice all the way to the equator. All of the landmasses were clad in continental glaciers.

Here I hypothesize the collision of the first fragment of a large comet at the moment of impact with the frozen surface of the Earth. The object would have instantaneously vaporized at a temperature hotter than the surface of the sun. The white hot flash would have been many times brighter than the sun. The atmospheric tsunami resulting from the titanic overpressure would have rippled outward from the epicenter of the blast at hypersonic speed. The ring of compression would have circumscribed the globe in a hour. However, the concentric shockwaves would have only gone out a few thousand kilometers before the second comet fragment impacted minutes after the first. As the Earth rotated beneath the comet train each impact would have fallen further to the west.

The tremendous heating and vast turnover of atmospheric gases caused by an impact could have abruptly ended the ice house conditions of the Cryogenian. What might have been an "extinction event" in later ages of the planet's history may have actually improved the conditions for the evolution of multicellular life.

art & text (c) John P. Alexander

2.5" x 3.5" art card rendered in Prismacolor pencils, Tombow markers & acrylics

Description
More of my astronomical and space travel art can be seen in my DA "Space Art" gallery:

lexlothor.deviantart.com/galle…

I previously posted a picture of the ancient "Snowball Earth" as seen from the vantage point of a comet about to collide with it:

lexlothor.deviantart.com/art/I…

Around 650 million years ago the earth was entirely covered by ice. Known as the period of the "Snowball Earth" the seas were glazed in pack ice all the way to the equator. All of the landmasses were clad in continental glaciers.

Here I hypothesize the collision of the first fragment of a large comet at the moment of impact with the frozen surface of the Earth. The object would have instantaneously vaporized at a temperature hotter than the surface of the sun. The white hot flash would have been many times brighter than the sun. The atmospheric tsunami resulting from the titanic overpressure would have rippled outward from the epicenter of the blast at hypersonic speed. The ring of compression would have circumscribed the globe in a hour. However, the concentric shockwaves would have only gone out a few thousand kilometers before the second comet fragment impacted minutes after the first. As the Earth rotated beneath the comet train each impact would have fallen further to the west.

The tremendous heating and vast turnover of atmospheric gases caused by an impact could have abruptly ended the ice house conditions of the Cryogenian. What might have been an "extinction event" in later ages of the planet's history may have actually improved the conditions for the evolution of multicellular life.

art & text (c) John P. Alexander

2.5" x 3.5" art card rendered in Prismacolor pencils, Tombow markers & acrylics