(ITA -1999)The Gentle Cosmic Rain 1 - HARDLY .....

(ITA - 1999)

The Gentle Cosmic Rain

            1 - HARDLY ............... TOOK LOUIS FRANK SERIOUSLY when he first proposed, more than 10 years ago, that Earth was being bombarded by cosmic snowballs at the rate of as many as 30 a minute. Part of the problem was how preposterous his theory sounded: every day, he suggested, tens of thousands of icy comets, each the size of a small house and containing 36 metric tons of water, were vaporizing in the upper atmosphere and raining down on Earth. It didn't help that the University of lowa physicist happened to release his findings on April 1, 1986. "Newspapers," he ²recalls, "phoned to ask if this was an April Fool's joke."

             2 - Frank is unlikely to hear that kind of question again. Last week, at the American Geophysical Union's annual convention in Baltimore, Md., he ¹backed up his theory with fresh evidence: satellite images that capture his cosmic hail in midflight. Suddenly it seems entirely possible that the source of much of the water on Earth - and even of life itself - might be Frank's "gentle cosmic rain." (...)

(TIME, June 9, 1997)

 

A lacuna encontrada na 1^a linha do texto deve ser preenchida por: