![]() NASA scientists say it would take an asteroid 60 miles (96 kilometers) wide to totally wipe out life on Earth. But, scientists believe some would survive. Billions would die, and much of life on the planet would be destroyed. This asteroid has less than a one-in-three-million chance of hitting Earth in 2056. The asteroid, called 2022 AP7, was among three new near-Earth. Once it made impact, it would create a tremendous dust plume that would envelope the entire planet, block out the sun and raise temperatures where the asteroid made impact. Check the ESAs Risk List today in 2022, and youll find asteroid 1979 XB at the top of the list. Astronomers have discovered, hiding in the sun’s glare, a 'planet killer' asteroid that could potentially one day hit Earth. Scientists estimate it would take an asteroid about 7 to 8 miles (11 to 12 kilometers) wide crashing into the Earth. It would completely destroy most major cities in the United States.įor an asteroid to wipe out most everything on Earth, it would have to be massive. This size asteroid would flatten reinforced concrete buildings 5 miles (8 kilometers) from ground zero. If the asteroid was as big as a 20-story building (200 feet on a side), it could have the amount of energy equal to the largest nuclear bombs made today - about 25 to 50 megatons. It would, in other words, do extensive damage to any city. An asteroid like this would flatten reinforced concrete buildings up to half a mile from where it hit, and flatten wooden structures perhaps a mile and a half (0.8 kilometers) from ground zero. The agency’s analysis has shown the Earth is safe from Apophis for at least a 100 years and that the asteroid shall only closely pass Earth on April 13, 2029. It would have the energy roughly equal to the bomb that fell on Hiroshima - perhaps 20 kilotons. Let's say that an asteroid the size of a house hit Earth at 30,000 miles per hour (48,280 kilometers per hour). An asteroid known as Bennu will pass within half the distance of the Earth to the Moon in the year 2135 but the probability of an impact with our planet in the coming centuries is very slight. ![]() It's difficult to imagine 1 million megatons, so let's try some smaller sizes. Scientists think it created massive tsunamis and threw so much water and dust into the atmosphere that it cut off sunlight, lowered temperatures worldwide and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. on Mars when the asteroid hit, but Terry himself would remain on Earth. The mountain-size asteroid left a crater off the coast of Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula 93 miles (146 kilometers) wide and 12 miles (19 kilometers) deep. In the little time remaining, scientists hoped to drive the asteroid off course. ![]() The most famous asteroid ever is the one that hit Earth 66 million years ago. There are obvious craters on Earth (and the moon) that prove a long history of massive objects hitting the planet. 18, 2022, at safe distance of 1.2 million miles (1.93 million kilometers).īut not all asteroids throughout history have missed Earth. It flew on by Earth on its closest approach in 200 years Jan. Astronomers say they have discovered the largest planet killer-sized asteroid in eight years, and that the huge space rock will cross Earth’s orbit. ![]() Earlier in the year one asteroid - NASA labeled it asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1- was 2.5 times the height of New York City's Empire State Building. He said this exercise set the participants up for failure.There were five asteroids on the Asteroid Watch dashboard for December 2022, alone, including two thought to be the size of a commercial jet. Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, helped host the recent simulation, as well as five previous ones like it. There isn't a spacecraft capable of destroying an asteroid or pushing it off its path that could get off the ground and fly to the rock in that amount of time. Asteroids with a 1km diameter strike Earth every 500,000 years, on average. The experts determined that no existing technologies could stop the asteroid from striking, given the scenario's six-month window. The simulation taught the group a difficult lesson: If an Earth-bound asteroid were spotted with that little warning, there's nothing anyone could do to keep it from hitting the planet. The situation was fictional, part of a week-long exercise that simulated an incoming asteroid in order to help US and international experts practice how to respond to such a situation. The space rock was expected to hit in six months. Last month, experts from NASA and other space agencies around the world faced a troubling hypothetical scenario: A mysterious asteroid had just been discovered 35 million miles away, and it was heading for Earth.
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