Comet Impact Page #4

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the sea water retreated,

...and it is from this flotsam of broken walls,

timbers and other debris

...that the search for survivors continues.

Stay here tonight.

Wouldn't it be betterto head back?

I don't mind driving,

- we can be in Dublin by...

- Josh, we'll stay here tonight.

Go easy on him, his father lived here.

I'm looking for Bryan Kelly.

Daddy.

We let this thing through you know,

we let it through...

Neil! No-one could have predicted this.

Ourjob is to watch objects in space.

If is not our responsibility, whose is it?

Oh Neil, get real.

There's a lot less dust than I expected,

if it was an asteroid it was no more than

And an asteroid that small would

never reach the ocean?

No.

And even if it did, it would never have had

enough powerto...

generate a Tsunami with such a high amplitude,

I mean the wave height measurements were

fartoo large for an asteroid of only 50 metres.

So, it was a comet?

Then it could have been much largerthan

even if it exploded on impact there

would have been relatively little dust...

Because unlike an asteroid is composed

mainly of ice.

It would have been moving much fasterthan

an asteroid too, you know,

between 20 and 35 miles per second.

Definitely enough muscle to cause a Tsunami.

Yeah. Yeah. Lesjust match that with

the co-ordinates of...

Marcie's sighting and the satellite images...

and les see if we get...

- Here she comes.

- We get the point of impact.

Oh yeah, notjust that...

Now if we trace the trajectory backwards...

we should be able to find out where

she came from,

look the orbit is practically grazing the sun,

thas why we missed her.

A sling-shot back to there...

just to the left Betelgeuse off Orion's shoulder,

- Oh gotcha

- thas where she came from.

From the outset of our investigation we've known

that the Tsunami was caused by the impact of a,

a near-earth object, a, an N.E.O.

We've discovered that this was

a small long period comet,

approximately 200 metres in diameter, probably

formed in the very early solar system,

even before the planets existed,

and now, now we know where it came from.

Why wasn't the comet spotted in time?

Well there are teams of astronomers around

the world whose...

sole purpose is finding and tracking N.E.O.'s...

but sadly this particular one couldn't have been

predicted by them or anyone else...

Why is that?

Well because the comet approached earth

at an acute angle,

very small, obscured by the glare of the sun.

Like fighter pilots driving out of the sun to...

surprise an enemy, impossible to see

until is too late.

So another one could sneak up on us at any time?

No, no. No. An event like the Rockall comet

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