An impact event is the collision of a large meteorite, asteroid, comet, or other celestial object with the Earth or another planet. Throughout recorded history, hundreds of minor impact events (and exploding bolides) have been reported, with some occurrences causing deaths, injuries, property damage or other significant localised consequences. There have also been major impact events throughout the Earth's history which severely disrupted the environment and caused mass extinctions.
Impact events have been a plot and background element in science fiction since knowledge of real impacts became established in the scientific mainstream.
Read more about Impact Event: Sizes and Frequencies, Geology of Impacts, Pleistocene Impact Events, Holocene Impact Events, Impact-caused Extinction Events, Non-terrestrial Impacts, End of Civilization
Famous quotes containing the words impact and/or event:
“If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn’t be here. It’d still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“The vanishing volatile froth of the present which any shadow will alter, any thought blow away, any event annihilate, is every moment converted into the Adamantine Record of the past.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)