Impact craters are interesting marks left on Earth. For one it leaves us a beautiful lake or a massive indent on Earth. However, they should make you think twice about how our space program is actually doing. As my main man Neil deGrasse Tyson has been famously quoted on:
“If humans one day become extinct from a catastrophic collision, we would be the laughing stock of aliens in the galaxy”
It’s undeniably true. We would be the laughing stock of the galaxy if an asteroid wiped us all out because we didn’t invest into our space programs enough. However, I think George E. Brown said it best when he said:
“If some day in the future we discover well in advance that an asteroid that is big enough to cause a mass extinction is going to hit the Earth, and then we alter the course of that asteroid so that it does not hit us, it will be one of the most important accomplishments in all of human history.”
One argument is how many people have died from an asteroid or a meteor? Well there have only been a dozen recorded deaths from falling asteroids in the past four hundred years. There have been more deaths by plane crashes than asteroids really. Nevertheless, where plane crashes may kill around 100 people a year on average an asteroid can wipe out a billion people instantaneously and destroy the rest of the world in the wake of global climate disaster.
What Would Happen at Different Unwelcome Deposits of Energy
This was really interesting to see what would happen to Earth if we had been hit with enough energy by asteroids. I have taken this from Neil deGrasse Tyson’s book “Space Chronicles” where he got this information from a book called “Hazards Due to Comets and Asteroids”. Hopefully you aren’t an extremely anxious person because this is just terrifying.
10 – 100 Megatons of Energy
Nothing too serious here except that ten megatons of energy would explode in the atmosphere leaving no trace of it. The meteorites that would survive would be the iron based ones.
1,000 – 10,000 Megatons of Energy
Now it’s time to start getting a little nervous. An impact that would release this much energy will produce a crater the size of Delaware. I think the surfers would love to ride the massive tidal waves as a result…however survival rate for them or anyone else who gets hit by them would be very low.
100,000 – 1,000,000 Megatons of Energy
Take a deep breath. The result of an impact with this much energy would cause global destruction of ozone. The oceans would have tidal waves that would be as huge as an entire hemisphere! While on land the dust and matter that would get kicked up all the way into the stratosphere to alter Earth’s weather and freeze crops. The land impact would destroy an area the size of France!
10,000,000 – 100,000,000 Megatons of Energy
Nothing too spectacular except for the fact that this would result in prolonged climate change and just a global fire. Oh and this would leave a land impact the size of the continental United States.
100,000,000 – 1,000,000,000 Megatons of Energy
So remember the dinosaurs that used to roam around the Earth? Well this is what hit them basically. This would be a nightmare (not that any of the previous ones wouldn’t be either). This would lead to mass extinctions everywhere.
A Side Story
Just to give you a little more insight on when the last time an impact with the energy that wiped out the dinosaurs hit one of our planets in our solar system you can look as far back as 1994. While Kurt Cobain’s death was sweeping the United States and the world with melancholy, our friend Jupiter was hit by Shoemaker-Levy 9. Travelling at 200,000 km per hour, the comet broke off into pieces and slammed right into the Jovian atmosphere. Scars as big as Earth were left on Jupiter and this impact was the biggest explosion ever witnessed in history. Take a look and watch this.
Continue to Beautiful Disasters…
