What If The Largest Asteroid Hit Earth?

how often do you think rocks falling from space land on people only one case in history has ever been officially confirmed although others have been reported on November 30th 1954 of four kilogram or nine pound meteorite crashed through the ceiling of 34 year old and Elizabeth Hodges home the stone bounced off the radio and hit the poor lady in the thigh leaving a huge bruise the probability of such a small meteorite hitting a person is negligible but it happened what if something larger fell to earth for example the largest asteroid in the solar system scientists estimate that there are now several hundred million asteroids one meter or 3.3 feet or more in size in Earth's orbit every day about a hundred tons of them in the form of small grains of sand and small stones penetrate the Earth's atmosphere and burn up leaving a bright trail about 30 asteroids with a total mass of up to 2,000 tons fly directly towards Earth's atmosphere every year occasionally their fragments fall to Earth's surface in the form of meteorites more noticeable meteorites larger than 20 meters or 65 point 6 feet fall to earth no more than twice every 100 years the last of these came down in the Chelyabinsk region in Russia in 2013 once every thousand years objects like the Tunguska meteorite which was about 75 meters or 246 feet in size reach the Earth's surface asteroids measuring more than a hundred meters or 328 feet land here even less often once every few thousand years the most gigantic asteroids whose dimensions exceed kilometers or miles crashed down onto our planet once every 100 million years but in this case they become the cause of global catastrophes in the extinction of species one of them probably destroyed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago if there were no wind rain and various geological processes on earth our entire planet would be dotted with craters as can be seen on the moon or mercury the remaining traces of space objects confirmed that asteroid impacts are not a fantasy at all the arrival of large stones remains only a matter of time scientists consider asteroids at least 140 meters or 460 feet in size as the most dangerous at the same time they're mostly located no further than 7.5 million kilometers or 4.6 million miles from the earth however it's very difficult to notice them after all they often clearly reflect sunlight have a flat shape and fly at a speed of 36,000 kilometers or 22400 miles per hour for individual asteroids the speed can be noticeably higher therefore even the most powerful technology is far from capable of stopping all of them in time one of the most dangerous candidates will approach earth in October 20 28th 1997 xf11 could fly past our planet at a distance of nine hundred thirty thousand kilometers or 580 thousand miles away this is so close that you could watch it with ordinary binoculars the size of the asteroid according to various estimates ranges from 700 to 1400 meters that's 2,300 to 4,600 feet scientists claim that it's going to happen suppose something goes wrong and it changes its course straight for earth the collision speed of such a block with the surface of the earth would be about 48,000 kilometers or thirty thousand miles per hour this would create an explosion of 1 million Megaton it's hard to imagine such a figure imagine that it partially burns out in the atmosphere or is divided into smaller fragments if an asteroid fragment the size of a one-story house crashes into earth at the same speed if power will be approximately comparable to the bomb detonated in Hiroshima about 20 kilotons such a collision would raise every reinforced concrete building within a radius of 800 meters or 2,600 feet from the impact of the asteroid everything made of wood within radius of 2.4 kilometers or one-and-a-half miles would be destroyed if the length of the Fallen asteroid is comparable to a 20-story building and is a little over 60 meters or 200 feet wide the impact power will be close to the explosions of modern nuclear bombs that is approximately 25 to 50 kilotons this is enough to incinerate every reinforced concrete structure within eight kilometers or five miles from the point of impact consequently all living things on the site will also perish in the event that 1997 xf11 falls to earth as a whole the power of the explosion will be 50 million times the power of the bomb detonated in Hiroshima everything within a radius of a hundred and sixty to 320 kilometers or 100 to 200 miles will turn to ashes if the epicentre were for example in New York City then from Boston to Washington DC there would not be a single tiny living life-form remaining with the exception of super resistant bacteria the explosion will raise a huge amount of dust into the atmosphere forming clouds that will block sunlight from the Earth's surface they for anyone who survives is likely to die from a sudden cold snap if such an asteroid hits the ocean it will create enormous waves more than 30 meters or 100 feet tall that will wash away everything on the nears coasts this asteroid is only one of the few potentially dangerous objects that could destroy life on Earth the largest and most dangerous is Series in 2006 scientists changed its status from asteroid to dwarf planet Ceres has a diameter of about 945 kilometers or 587 miles Discovery Channel employees created an animation showing the effects of a collision between Earth and Ceres according to their video first a shadow of the impending object would block a fairly large area of Earth from sunlight when it reached the atmosphere the asteroid would begin to burn then Ceres would penetrate deep into the planet creating enormous tsunamis the force of the collision would be so powerful that fragments of our planet would fly straight into space but they would not remain there for long the resulting stone fragments would rain down on every area of our planet the Himalayan mountains including the peak of Everest would be completely burned and turned into a plane it's unlikely that anyone would be able to survive on earth after such an impact fortunately in the near future a clash with Ceres is unlikely however this hypothetical experiment shows how fragile and vulnerable life on Earth is according to scientists from NASA to destroy all life on the planet a 10 kilometer or 6.2 mile asteroid is enough that is almost 95 times smaller than Ceres a collision with a large asteroid will happen sooner or later researchers regularly searched for ways to avoid such a catastrophe the best way to do this is to change the trajectory of an asteroid or destroy it in space before it reaches us for these purposes NASA together with SpaceX planned to launch the Darden spacecraft its mission is to collide with the moon of the didymus asteroid which in October 2022 will be several million kilometres from Earth dart weighs 500 kilograms or 1,100 pounds and measures 12 and a half meters by 2.4 meters or 41 by 8 feet the diameter of its moon is about a hundred and 50 meters or 500 feet scientists calculate that the spacecraft and the block of stone will collide at a speed of 6 kilometers or 3.7 miles per second this will allow them to determine whether a small collision can affect the orbit of an asteroid in any case the main thing is that after this experiment didymus and its moon will not be heading towards Earth because their trajectories are currently not in line with our planet in truth for each of us the chances of dying from an asteroid are pretty small they're even smaller than the probability of getting struck by lightning amounting to only one in 280,000 but these statistics apply to the individual if we talk about the planet as a whole then the hazard coefficient increases asteroid 2010 RF 12 has the highest chance of colliding with earth one in 16 it could come within 8.7 thousand to 15,000 kilometers or 5,400 290 300 miles from the earth and in 2095 it could even crash into our planet fortunately it's not large enough to lead to global cataclysms however there are still many other giant boulders in space flying past earth at a dangerously close proximity in your opinion will technology be able to fully protect us from collisions in the future let us know in the comments if you liked this video give it a thumbs up don't forget to subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already and click on a bell to receive notifications of new interesting videos that are waiting for you ahead [Music]

Channel: Ridddle

Views: 4,012,790

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Keywords: Ridddle, riddle, what if, what, if, what would happened, What Happens If, sci, science, smart, experiment, Asteroid, The Largest Asteroid, Hit Earth, Hits The Earth

Id: 8VB-jfqrtM4

Length: 10min 46sec (646 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 06 2020