Astronomical Phenomena and Humanistic Interpretation: Past Life of Crater

1492165438+1On October 7th, a huge meteorite landed in the wheat field outside the town of Ensim in northeast France. This meteorite was regarded as a miracle of God by King Maximilian of the Holy Roman Empire, and some of it was sent to the Vatican.

Clive Oppenheimer, a British volcanologist and professor at Cambridge University, recalled visiting the meteorite impact site.

Oppenheimer said in an interview with Anti-Century: "In different periods and cultures, people will think of heaven and the gods there. If something falls from the sky, it is that God is interfering in human affairs. "

Oppenheimer is a key figure in the new documentary "Fireball: Visitors from the Dark World". Meteorites have been visiting our planet since the existence of the earth. This documentary explores their scientific and cultural significance.

Scientists study meteorites because they are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Each work tells us a part of a grand story, about how the solar system was formed and how life was formed on our planet. But throughout human history, people have also given meteorites a cultural significance, and this film has not avoided this feature.

These rocks falling from the sky may also help people understand their unique origins.

"[Meteorite] plays an important role in the social landscape, and its humanistic significance far exceeds the scientific significance."

"This story is complicated because meteorites have so many different meanings," Oppenheimer said. "To a certain extent, this question digs into a bigger theme, one of which is the origin of life."

With director werner herzog, Oppenheimer traveled around the world, from French to Australia and Antarctica. He visited the impact point of meteorites on the earth's surface and discussed with experts that these space rocks told us about life on earth.

Oppenheimer and an Antarctic meteorite. Source: Apple

Meteorites are fragments of asteroids. After falling from the mother, they will float in space and then fall into the earth. It is generally believed that these primitive space rocks originated from the material that formed the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. There is also a theory that these meteorites may carry organic compounds and other key components of life on earth.

In the film, Oppenheimer tries to sort out some themes-the origin of the solar system and the origin of human beings-as well as the cultural significance of meteorites and the threat to the earth's catastrophic impact. Finally, the film shows how these seemingly different contents-science and cultural beliefs-are interrelated and mutually reinforcing.

Oppenheimer used his work as a volcanologist to understand the cultural significance of meteorites. Source: Apple

Oppenheimer's openness to these different theories is in sharp contrast to the film director werner herzog, who believes that life is unlikely to come to Earth through meteorites. But Herzog believes that the composition of meteorites can be a clue to the existence of life outside the solar system.

"We have the same chemicals as the universe, we have the same laws of physics, and we have the same history as the universe," Herzog said in an interview with Inverse Century magazine this week. .

"So, there are trillions of stars in the universe, and some form of life is likely to exist somewhere."

During the 20 16 Perseid meteor shower, a meteor crossed the night sky. Source: NASA/Bill ingels.

Humans have been trying to find intelligent life and reproduce the process of life formation on earth. This idea often makes human imagination go beyond the field of science, because we always try to give meaning to our existence.

As a volcanologist, Oppenheimer noticed that volcanoes and meteorites have strange similarities in this respect. Both of them are related to human culture-volcanoes usually have cultural significance to the groups living around them, and the groups who witnessed the falling of meteorites will add cultural significance to such events.

"For me, this is the charm of meteorites: their social phenomena and their role in the social landscape-their humanistic significance far exceeds scientific significance." He said.

The film gives an example of Western Australia, where a meteorite left a huge and well-preserved crater, Wolf Creek Crater. There, indigenous groups living nearby have their own stories about the formation of craters. Another example is that Muslims go to Mecca in Saudi Arabia to worship every year, where a black stone is placed in the corner of the Kelbai Temple. Some people speculate that it is a falling meteorite, although it is still controversial.

Meteorite impact is of cultural and scientific significance to human beings. Source: Apple

Oppenheimer said, "You often see people marveling at meteorites. They are such strange rocks that I think we have a curiosity about them. "

In addition to cultural symbolism, meteorites are also of great significance to researchers on earth. These relatively primitive signals from space are the key to understanding the history of the universe.

As part of the film, Oppenheimer met scientists who were looking for meteorites that had fallen on glaciers for thousands of years while crossing Antarctica. In the ice and snow, he wondered why they were so eager to find the meteorite by all means.

"They have found thousands of meteorites. Why do they need more? " Oppenheimer recalled that he had asked himself this question. "This is because they are looking for things that have never been discovered, to solve the mystery before the formation of the solar system, or to tell us how the earth was formed." He said.

More than 50,000 meteorites have been found on the earth, but every time a new meteorite is found, scientists are still learning more about our planet and the wider universe.

Oppenheimer said: "A lot of work in this field is done at the micro scale, but from this point, we have inferred some of the oldest secrets on the largest scale of the solar system."

Source: fox13 empires

Author: inverse

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