2007-09-15 04:43:15 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
3.5 miles is about 5.6 kilometers. That would make a crater about 67 km across, and an earthquake about 9.2 on the Richter scale. The effect will shatter windows up to 1000 km away.
Life-extinguishing? Only if you are within 300 km - 400 km or so of the impact. The average time between impacts like this is about 26 million years.
2007-09-15 06:10:36 · answer #1 · answered by morningfoxnorth 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Any object greater than 1km in size will likely result in the extinction of the human race - not from the impact itself but from the resulting chaos and debris thrown into the upper atmosphere. This is the reason that NASA and Spaceguard have targeted the discovery of all objects of this size or greater. over the past decade. (Spaceguard sites at Kitt Peak, NEAT, LINEAR and many other survey programmes)
NASA now estimates they are close to knowing 90% of them and participants in the programme are now looking for funding to extend the search to objects down to 300m in size (enough to cause serious regional devastation)
2007-09-16 08:59:10 · answer #2 · answered by The Lazy Astronomer 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A 3.5 mile asteroid would probably be too small to cause an extinction event, but it would be bad, especially near the point of impact.
2007-09-15 12:41:09 · answer #3 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Not quite life-extinguishing. Single-celled organisms, deeply buried in rock, might survive. But yes, such an event would deposit enough energy to boil away the oceans, making life untenable for everyone else.
2007-09-15 11:50:08 · answer #4 · answered by cosmo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
no. not at all.
2007-09-15 11:49:01 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋