Deep Impact Mission to Tempel 1 Favours New Explosive Cosmogony of Comets

The assumption that short-period (SP) comets are fragments of massive icy envelopes of Ganymede-like bodies saturated by products of ice electrolysis that underwent global explosions provides a plausible explanation of all known manifestations of comets, including the jet character of outflows, the presence of ions in the vicinity of the nucleus, the bursts and splitting of cometary nuclei, etc., with solar radiation initiating burning of the products of electrolysis in the nucleus. As shown persuasively by numerical simulation carried out in hydrodynamic approximation, the shock wave initiated by the Deep Impact (DI) impactor in the cometary ice saturated originally by the electrolysis products 2H2 + O2 is capable of activating under certain conditions exothermal reactions (of the type O2 + H2 + organics = H2O + CO + HCN + other products of incomplete burning of organics including its light and heavy pyrolyzed compounds, soot, etc.), which will slow down shock wave damping (forced detonation) and increase many times the energy release. As a result, the measured energetics of ejections and outflows from the crater have to exceed the DI energetics. Analysis of different clusters of the DI experiment data confirms these conclusions and expectations and thus it favours the planetary origin of comets.Comment: 21 pages incluging 3 figure

Fractal properties of isolines at varying altitude reveal different dominant geological processes on Earth

Geometrical properties of landscapes result from the geological processes that have acted through time. The quantitative analysis of natural relief represents an objective form of aiding in the visual interpretation of landscapes, as studies on coastlines, river networks, and global topography, have shown. Still, an open question is whether a clear relationship between the quantitative properties of landscapes and the dominant geomorphologic processes that originate them can be established. In this contribution, we show that the geometry of topographic isolines is an appropriate observable to help disentangle such a relationship. A fractal analysis of terrestrial isolines yields a clear identification of trenches and abyssal plains, differentiates oceanic ridges from continental slopes and platforms, localizes coastlines and river systems, and isolates areas at high elevation (or latitude) subjected to the erosive action of ice. The study of the geometrical properties of the lunar landscape supports the existence of a correspondence between principal geomorphic processes and landforms. Our analysis can be easily applied to other planetary bodies.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure