How much damage would a comet/asteroid that is 3 miles wide in length, that hits Asia, do to people in the US?

Question

And how big would a comet have to be in order to kill everything in the world?

Answer 1

Dude...An asteroid the size of a golf ball created the gulf of mexico....3 Miles wide in length would destroy Earth completely.

Answer 2

Melosh and Collins created an Impact effects formula. I plugged in 3 miles wide and impacting at 20 km/sec and this is an extract of results:

Crater would be 45 miles wide

If you were standing 60 miles from the impact:

1.The heat would catch your clothing on fire
2.There would be an Earthquake of mag 9.3
3.You would be covered in ejecta to a depth of 120 feet
4.But firstly, the blast would have blown you away, as it would all buildings, trees, bridges and overpasses.

If you were 600 miles away

1.Wooden buildings would be destroyed, 90% trees blown down, windows would shatter
2.If you managed not to be blown away, youy would be covered by a fine dust that would cover the terrain with several inches of depth
3.But if you survived, you would not get burned, as the whole flashover would take place over the horizon from your aspect 600 miles away

What you have to bear in mind is that the global effect is an after-effect. The fine ejecta gets into the upper atmosphere and changes the climate.

3 miles wide might not be big enough for extinctions, but 6 miles wide means 8 times heavier. One that size is capable of putting enough stuff in the atmosphere to cause a global freeze, and also poison the soils globally.

That is, from a couple thousand miles away, you would survive the impact, but you would die over the following months.

The final point people should get in their heads is that nothing out there has the potential to do any sizable damage to the Earth as a whole, other than leave a scar on the surface (a crater, which will be eroded in due course). It is the effects on the atmosphere and the oceans (biosphere) that is the problem for living things. Remember that we live and survive in a thin film of gas that surrounds the planet. Sometimes people forget that.

Answer 3

There's a little misinformation in the previous answers: First of all, a 3-mile wide asteroid would be devastating worldwide, and it would incinerate everybody withing a fairly large radius, but it certainly wouldn't kill everybody in the world. People in the US would experience ejecta from the impact raining back down (think of a fiery rain), and possibly high winds and tremors. Then there are the long-term effects: the impact would launch so much dust into the air that it would block out the Sun for perhaps several months, drastically lowering the surface temperature and severely stressing life.

The Gulf of Mexico was not...no, COULD NOT HAVE BEEN created by an impact of something the size of a golf ball. For one, a golf-ball sized meteor would burn up long before it hit the ground. Second, golf-ball sized meteors enter Earth's atmosphere on a fairly regular basis. If it happens to be dark, you'll see a spectacular meteor, but certainly no new Gulf of Mexico. Now it is true that the asteroid/comet that probably killed the dinosaurs landed in the Gulf of Mexico region, but it was over 6 miles wide, and even then, it didn't create the gulf. Also, you'll notice that there is still plenty of life on Earth, even after that catastrophic event. (No dinosaurs, though).

In order to kill all of humanity, you'd need a big rock, but probably not too big. It's hard to say because we're smart, and we can develop ways to survive if we see it coming. I'd say, just guessing, that the collision of a rock 50 miles wide would be an effective species-ending event. It may take even less than that...like I said, there are a lot of variables.

To end ALL life, though, you'd need something unheard of...you'd need the kind of collision that hasn't happened since the earliest period in our Solar System when a Mars-sized rock slammed into the Earth, forming the Moon in the process. Killing all surface life might be relatively easy, but there are bacteria living in rock several kilometers deep, and as long as that rock isn't completely melted, they can survive. Sure, the Earth won't be much fun with just them around, but life is life, right?

There's a great website that allows you to calculate the effects at any given distance from the point of impact. You might enjoy playing around with it. The URL is:
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

Answer 4

There would be seismic events triggered all over the world, and there are faults and volcanoes in the U.S. that could be triggered in this way. Impactors this large would incinerate an entire continent, and cause violent shockwaves in the atmosphere like those caused by nuclear weapons detonating, only far more powerful. If the event is large and close enough to the U.S., vast areas would be laid waste the same way Hiroshima and Nagasaki were by nuclear weapons. The crater formed would be some 40 or 50 miles across if it's an asteroid, and it would be much bigger if a comet struck because of the much greater impact velocity. Everything for hundreds of miles around the crater would either vaporize or ignite. Massive amounts of melted rock and shards of debris would be thrown into space which will travel in long ballistic tracjectories. These would fly out all over the globe before falling back into the atmosphere. Here we would see what looks at first like the mother of all meteor showers, but this would quickly result in everyone caught outside burning to death who didn't die in the secondary impacts from large chunks of debris forming secondary craters on the Earth. The infalling debris would not only strike the ground and set fires everywhere around the world, it would heat the very air to a temperature of at least 700 or 800 degrees here. The debris would also destroy every satellite and spacecraft orbiting the Earth, paralying government's attempts to cope with the disaster. If the impact occurs on a shoreline, mega-tsnamis initially more than a mile in height would result, and they would spread out across the ocean at supersonic speeds. As they spread out, they lose height but nevertheless they would rear up again to monsters hundreds of feet tall that will sweep inland for up to tens of miles, killing everyone in their path all around the entire Pacific basin. The smoke from massive firestorms started plus the pulverized rock from the impactor and the target rock it stuck would fill the atmosphere and cut out the sunlight, creating a nuclear winter worldwide. Even during daytime and the sky would be as black as the darkest night. The temperatures would drop until the Earth turns into a dark and frozen wasteland. Plants would die out, animals would soon follow. Everyone who didn't die in the impact would then face starvation and freezing to death because agriculture would be impossible. Fuel and electricity would be impossible to come by, at least enough to keep all of the survivors alive. The nuclear winter could last for months, years or even longer, nobody knows. A three mile wide impactor is quite enough to exterminate the human race and all higher plants and animals, and wiping the slate clean of all but the most hardy of lifeforms. They would survive the catastrophre and in time come to dominate the Earth. We exist today because a comet or asteroid eliminated the dinosaurs and at least 75 percent of all the other species living at that time. Since then our ancestrors took over and paved the way for us. It is possible we could go the way of the dinsosaur and some form of life alive right now could in time take our place at the top of the food chain.

Answer 5

Asteroid Damage

Answer 6

in spite of the comet or asteroid or planetoid or the rest hitting the Earth it somewhat is planet killer length..., the governments of the international are unlikely to tell the persons squat. There could be non secular upheavals, persons could be killing, raping, looting, you call it. i'm effective there could be a huge form praying and desirous to spend their final days with enjoyed ones, however the violent human beings could be having a field day. I cite the l. a. riots - the place the justification replaced into no longer probable existent - there have been human beings out to wreck, injure and kill in effortless terms for the excitement of it and used Rodney King as an excuse. no longer anybody joined in those riots - yet sufficient did. If we've been to be sure with one hundred% fact that the Earth replaced into going to be obliterated and all existence extinguished - the insane could run the asylum, relax certain. So n authorities, exceptionally the U.S., could warn all and assorted. regardless of if it replaced right into a state or city sized killer asteroid, the losses by ability of warning the persons could be extra advantageous than ultimate silent. Or a minimum of thats their concept and it in keeping with probability genuine.

Answer 7

Hi. That asteroid would kill most life on Earth, despite the continent.

Answer 8

it would wipe out the earth and them for years and years and years a dark brown cloud of dust would cover the earth then it would become a cold waste land until it cleared up

Answer 9

It would wipe out life on Earth.