What will be the impact of an astreoid hitting the earth?

Answer 1

The chances of this happening today and tomorrow (and so on) are stastically the same as any other day in human history, and it has certainly happened before, so of course it is a reality that we should be concerned with.

In fact, on June 30, 1908, a meteorite estimated at around 5-6 miles in diameter exploded about 3-6 miles above an isolated area of Siberea (Tunguska), causing a 10-20 megaton explosion (about 1,000 times more than the Hirshima atomic bomb) that destroyed 830 square miles of unihabited forest.

The shockwave from this explosion also knocked people off their feet and shattered windows about 100 miles outside of the blast radius in all directions.

830 square miles is about 1/2 the size of Rhode Island and 12 times larger than Washington, DC. New York City is about 309 square miles.

So it has happened before, and fairly recently, but the catastrophe just happened to hit an unpopulated area.

The good news is that we now have the technology and funding to track objects in the sky that could possibly collide with earth. The NEAR Earth project was established in 2004 and fully funded by the federal government as of March, 2007.

With modern technology (which is only going to get better), this project officially run through 5 observatories across the globe can accurately identify and track objects as small as 140 meters in diameter DECADES before they are within proximity of the earth. They are currently tracking 4679 objects under 1 km in diameter and 715 objects over 1 km in diameter, and of these, only 2 are considered to have high priority levels, both of which are over 20 years away.

The project estimates that it is currently tracking 90+% of all objects over 1km in diameter that have any probability of passing within 1.3 AUs (1.0 AU = distance from the earth to the sun) of Earth.

With 10 years notice, our global resources and technology could surely divert any detected object.

SO, the answer to your question is that you are safer now than at ANY time in human history from the threat of a collision event, and realistically, the threat may have been virtually nutrualized altogether!!

So don't worry, be happy!!

Answer 2

Any object over 100 meter in diameter will have devastating consequences for humans. It will not destroy earth or a significant number of animals but the impact the dust cloud would have on our crops for 2 maybe 3 years could disrupt our very fragile socioeconomic system and cause widespread chaos.

Answer 3

Meteorites strike the Earth on a daily basis, most of them are no bigger than a grain of sand and they burn up in our atmosphere, some are large enough to make the fiery trip and hit with with some mass intact, they cause great damage and tidal waves. One that hit the Earth millions of years ago wiped out 90% of Earths species.

Answer 4

I';m assuig this is one of those kilometre size asteroids out tere:

1. Close up- it gets so hot your eyes melt.
2. If it hits the ocean it will create massive tidal waves that will take out whole coastlines (imagine every city on the US coast going down).
3. Huge earthequakes.
4. Massive fires.
5. All our infrastructure would go down.

Answer 5

Depends on how big. Needless to say, either no one dies, a lot of people die, or everyone dies. A land-strike causes earthquakes and throws up dust. A strike to one of the oceans would cause killer tsunamis as well as possibly more earthquakes.

If it explodes (implodes) in air it would have a similar effect as a nuclear device minus the radiation and emp. Huge pressure waves would level buildings and the ensuing fire storm would incinerate stuff.

Answer 6

Asteroids are always hitting Earth it's just that they are teeny weeny.
Huge ones could wipe out the human race. Or bigger ones could destroy the entire planet.

Answer 7

Well,this matters how large the asteroid is.The size and how fast the asteroid is going.If you were in some kind of bunker of something then you may be OK,but would probity die because of the lack of water and extreme climate change.

Answer 8

It will cause earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruption. The impact of it could wipe out every living creatures on this planet.( IT's DEVASTATING!)

Answer 9

It depends on the size of the astroid; but any astroid of few kilometer can distroy the life cycles on earth

Answer 10

You can do a simulation on-line with any selected size, material and entry speed of an asteroid at:

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects