From: Spudboy100@aol.com
Date: Fri May 17 2002 - 20:53:34 MDT
http://space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/strangelets_020513.html
Stranger than Fiction? Strangelets Bombard Earth
By SPACE.com Staff
posted: 03:36 pm ET, 13 May 2002
A team of researchers claims to have found evidence in seismic records for
terrestrial impacts of truly strange theoretical particles called
strangelets. The particles are said to have ripped through Earth, emerging
from the other side virtually unimpeded in their supersonic travels.
The work, reported in London's Sunday Telegraph, has not been confirmed, nor
has it gone through the typical review process of a refereed scientific
paper.
Strangelets are tiny but dense clumps of matter that were theorized two
decades ago, but no one has ever seen them or proved they exist. They are
thought to have formed during the Big Bang and inside dense stars and are
made of subatomic particles called quarks and strange quarks. They are
presumed to be 10 million times more dense than lead and to travel largely
undetected through space at roughly 1 million mph.
If they are firmly determined to exist, strangelets could help explain some
of the so-called dark matter of the universe, missing mass that scientists
say must be there based on the behavior of galaxies that could only be caused
by gravity from some unseen stuff.
A team of researchers from Southern Methodist University in Texas dug through
old seismic records looking for signs of strangelets passing through,
according to the article. They reportedly found two separate 1993 events in
which localized earthquakes occurred and were matched seconds later by
similar events on another part of the planet.
One event was recorded by seismometers in Turkey and Bolivia, then followed
26 seconds later by some shaking near Sri Lanka. The other event began in
Australia and Bolivia and was apparently matched 19 seconds later off
Antarctica.
Researchers believe other entirely harmless particles, called neutrinos,
routinely pass through Earth undetected.
It is not clear what if any effect a strangelet impact might have on
inhabited areas.
"It's very hard to determine what the effect would be," said Eugene Herrin in
the Telegraph article. "There would probably be a tiny crater but it would be
virtually impossible to find anything."
Herrin said the seismic records were consistent with the theory of
strangelets. But Frank Close, a particle physicist at Oxford University, said
more examples would have to be found and studied to rule out other
possibilities.
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