"When you are in the space station, and there is no gravity, how do the astronaunts sleep, without floating around in their beds? "
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Impacts Focus Group
Peter Ward, Co-Chair
University of Washington
argo@u.washington.eduFrank Kyte, Co-Chair
University of California, Los Angeles
kyte@igpp.ucla.eduThe Impacts Focus Group (IFG) has been assembled to examine how impacts of asteroids, comets, and other materials have influenced the origin, evolution, and extinction of life on Earth. A major goal of the Impacts Focus Group is to accumulate samples from a wide variety of temporal and geographical research locales. The geochemical and paleontological analysis of these samples will also be a major thrust of their efforts. Impacts, as a geological process, have affected landscapes of every rocky or icy planet in the solar system. If life ever existed on astrobiological points of interest such as Mars or Europa, then impacts have likely affected the biota on these bodies as they have done on Earth.
Background
Until recently, impact cratering has been viewed primarily as a geological process. Research in this area has been involved with questions regarding the relationship between impactor size and crater size. However, impact sites such as the K/T boundary at Chicxulub have demonstrated that impacts can have profound biological consequences as well. The Impacts Focus Group seeks to understand how impact cratering as a geological process affects the surrounding environment and its biota. Members will concentrate primarily on field-based hypothesis testing, and secondarily, on the utilization of theoretical models.
While the IFG is a relative newcomer to the NAI’s growing list of Focus Groups, its members have already convened and addressed many relevant areas of interest. Topics that are planned for investigation include impacts as the cause of mass extinctions, impacts as a mechanism for delivering biological materials to early Earth, and impacts as a mechanism for delivering water to Earth. This Focus Group may also examine many of the physical attributes of cratering such as crater morphology and geology, geological signatures of craters, dynamics of formation, and frequency of impacts. By studying these various aspects of impact and cratering processes, the Impacts Focus Group will provide the astrobiological community with a greater understanding of how the physics and geology of impacts translates to biological perturbation and adaptation.
