Customer Reviews

National Geographic's Asteroids: Deadly Impact [VHS]

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It's astonishing that as recently as 1963 the preponderance of opinion was that Meteor Crater was not caused by an impact.

After the last lunar landing impact was established as the overwhelmingly dominant process at work on the lunar surface, but such impacts on Earth were generally still denied.

Despite the fact that the Alvarez theory gained ground from 1980 until the middle of 1994, impact as a common occurence continued to be denied. After the SL9 impact on Jupiter (well covered in this video) the last significant resistance to the K-T impact as the mechanism of extinction for the dinosaurs was swept away. That this catastrophe on another world brought about an overnight change in the sciences was appropriate.

Now there are many impact craters recognized AS impact craters found throughout the world and not just in some comfortably remote location like the Moon or Jupiter. It is now much cheaper to read constrasting views about such events since the anti-impactors' books have appeared in the remainder lists.

Asteroids Deadly Impact is my favorite National Geographic video of all time, and I believe I've seen them all. Perhaps it would be a much better world if people would tune out the daytime (and nighttime) tv garbage and watch stuff like this. Certainly would be worth a try.

Those who like to keep their eyes on the sky will appreciate this documentary, which follows geologist Eugene Shoemaker, who as the chief lunar scientist for NASA, trained the astronauts before the moon landings at the nearly mile-wide Meteor Crater near Flagstaff, Arizona. With his wife Carolyn, and collaborator David Levy, Shoemaker discovered Shoemaker-Levy 9, in March of 1993, the meteor that impacted with Jupiter in July of '94, and was so well recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope. Shoemaker likens meteors to "space bullets," and gives us with his riffle, a miniature version of what happens upon impact. Shoemaker has discovered hundreds of asteroids and comets, and "helped transform the map of the sky," and also has an immensely likable personality, making this film enjoyable as well as educational.

Also interviewed are David Morrison of NASA, who claims "if it happened to the dinosaurs it can happen to us," and astronaut/geologist Dr. Jack Schmitt. There's a scene where Eugene and Carolyn visit the Ries Basin in Germany, where the town of Nordlinger is built within a crater, and marvel at the "large geologic sample," St. George's Cathedral, built with local stone that includes melted glass, the result of asteroidal impact. Other craters described are in Tunguska, Siberia, where in 1908 the trees were flattened for miles, and the Chicxulub crater within the peninsula of Yucatan, which occurred 65 million years ago, and coincides with the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Another reason to enjoy this documentary is its narration, by composer, actor and guitarist extraordinaire Robbie Robertson, whose mellow, beautiful voice is music to my ears. Very well written and directed by Eitan Weinreich, with a good score by Mark Adler, the total running time is 60 minutes.

As you might expect, National Geographic scores a bullseye with "Asteroids." Although much of the content has been explored in other specials, the presentation here is nicely done and the material easily understood. Peter Coyote's voiceover work helps to authenticate the very real threat that asteroids pose to our planet. END