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Steve, you keep referring to the "Impact Angle". When in reality only 11% of comet/meteorite impacts are direct impacts on land. The full statistics are:
2% - Skim through atmosphere and deflect back into space.
17% - Airburst over solid land.
41% - Airburst over oceans.
28% - Impact into the ocean.
11% - Impact onto land
Of course, this type of knowledge and understanding is the cutting edge of our understanding on how life came to be on the Earth and it is in it's infancy but whilst you see it as improbable we must consider some issues:
Structure of Comets.
You have agreed with me that comets are in essence giant dirty snowballs that have a very large cronium that is organic matter & water deeply frozen. The science question is simply to answer can & how does organic matter from a comet arrive on Earth. You also agree that organic matter can survive a low angle impact, which as the figures above show only occures out of a given percentage within 11%. Probability favours "Air Bursts" since 58% will not actually impact directly but spread their cargo over a wide area. Nobody really knows the strength of the crust within a comet & the recent "Deep Impact" probe has already proved that the crust is solid & hard, but not as hard as was expected. The deep impact probe may actually fail in it's mission because it was by the study of the impact crator that was made give science the understanding of the consistency of the comet. Because far more of the cronium has been released than expected we have learned that the crust is weaker than expected (this alone only increases the probability of organic matter surviving an airburst or low angle impact). The cronium (where the frozen Ice and matter resides) is bigger and closer to the surface of the comet. Unfortunately, this knowledge has been gained at expense, since the cronium matter is so much that it is blocking the view of the crator itself. Hopefully this will clear, I am desperately scouring the net for any latest knowledge.
Their is of course much understood knowledge of the matter contained within a comet. But in reality, and to dispell counter debates, the whole matter needs to be resolved. For example:
1. Does life actually exist within comets?
2. Do Peptides exists within comets?
3. What is the organic matter like in the deep cold vast of space deeply frozen?
I wish I knew, but in 191 days 21 Hours & 30 minutes we will have the cronium material under our earthly microscopes with no foriegn body contamination......... "I wonder what wonders we will find"
Stardust Mission
Launched - Feb 7th 1999
Main comet matter collection - Jan 5th 2004
Expected return to earth - Jan 15th 2006
So after a six year mission, we finally get to analyze this matter.......
http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/top.html
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