(298) Baptistina

Template: Infobox Asteroid / Maintenance / Error 1

(298 ) Baptistina is an asteroid of the main asteroid belt, which was discovered on September 9, 1890 by Auguste Charlois at Nice Observatory.

Baptistina moves at a distance of 2.0474 ( perihelion ) to 2.481 ( aphelion ) astronomical units in 3.4065 years of the sun. The orbit is inclined 6.2847 ° to the ecliptic, the orbital eccentricity is 0.0957.

Baptistina has a diameter of about 40 km and is probably one of the carbonaceous chondrites.

Collision theory

On similar lines circling a number of small objects with similar properties. This led to the theory that Baptistina is once collided with another asteroid. Baptistina - then about 170 kilometers in size - collided with an approximately 60 kilometer asteroid. Here, some 100,000 fragments emerged with more than one kilometer in diameter and about 300 with more than 10 kilometers in diameter. About two percent of these fragments have been deflected by the gravity of Mars and Jupiter into the inner solar system.

A computer simulation for back-calculation of the orbits of the year 2007 showed a high probability that this collision took place before about 160 million years ago. According to the simulation of the resulting from the collision of objects would have been responsible for the asteroid impact, which could have triggered the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago ( the so-called KT- Impact). Even the striking crater Tycho in the southern hemisphere of the moon would have occurred with 70% probability by the impact of these objects.

Recent measurements of the NASA Space Telescope Wide - Field Infrared Survey Explorer from the year 2011 disproved this theory. The collision of the two large asteroid was therefore carried out 80 million years ago, which is why the fragments formed can not be responsible for the KT impact event.