Chapter 6: Comets vs Asteroids (from Prehistory Decoded, uploaded for Asteroid Day 2019) Did a huge cosmic catastrophe occur around 10,900 BC that wiped out many large animal species, brought the world to its knees, and triggered a mini ice age? Regardless of myths and legends, this question can only be definitively answered by science, based on evidence and logical deduction. We saw in Chapter 5 that geochemical evidence points very strongly towards this view, although precise details of the event are elusive. It is not clear what kind of object, or objects, caused the destruction, and the impact it had on climate, megafauna, and human cultures continues to be debated. Furthermore, the impact hypothesis has been challenged, mainly by Mark Boslough, on the grounds that an event involving multiple impacts spread across several continents even defies the laws of physics. This view contends that comets and asteroids orbit the inner solar system alone, without any accompanying deb...
