Some scientists and former astronauts believe the Earth will be struck by an asteroid sometime in the future. The size of an asteroid is an important factor in determining whether it will cause an impact. Some estimates say that it will happen once every hundred to thousand years. During this time, asteroids will be passing by the Earth’s atmosphere. However, this doesn’t mean that the Earth will not be hit by an asteroid.
If an asteroid were to strike the Earth, the chances of a major impact are extremely low. While the asteroid is travelling at speeds of up to 16 km/sec, the debris will be blown into the atmosphere, space, and the atmosphere again. Fortunately, many of these meteorites survive the fiery descent to Earth’s surface and are preserved as museum pieces. The asteroid may come back within hundreds of millions of years, but it may never hit us.
An asteroid will likely not impact the Earth, but there is no way to tell for sure. The astronomers at NASA have only tracked about 90 percent of the near-Earth asteroids, and they still don’t know much about the ones bigger than a mile in diameter. An asteroid that is a mile in diameter would hit the Earth at a speed of 30,000 miles per second, or 48,280 kilometers per second. The energy that this asteroid generates will have the power of a million megaton bomb.
The size of an asteroid’s orbit is unknown until it strikes the Earth. But NASA has a way to predict where an asteroid will crash. Asteroids will typically pass by Earth in less than a million miles, which is ten times the distance between the Earth and the moon. The energy of the impact will also vaporize the asteroid and a large portion of the Earth’s crust. The resulting debris will then slam the Earth, creating a massive crater that is one hundred kilometers across.
A large asteroid has a long-range orbit around the sun. Its energy equals that of the largest nuclear bombs currently on the market. The asteroid’s impact on Earth has been measured over several million years, and it is estimated to be 200 feet in diameter. A 20-story building would be about a mile wide and 12 miles deep and have the energy of several hundred million tons of energy.
A 20-story asteroid would be 200 feet in diameter. It would be capable of hitting the Earth with the energy of the largest nuclear bombs on Earth. It would destroy most cities and probably create a huge crater. If a twenty-story asteroid were to hit the Earth, it would leave a crater that is the size of a city. Further, it will also cause a massive tsunami.
A large asteroid hit the Earth in 1908, causing a large forest to flatten. Another large asteroid struck the Earth in 2008, damaging homes 55 miles away from the asteroid’s trajectory. It also caused several fatalities, but the fact remains that the Earth is constantly under threat from space objects. This is why we need to make sure we’re prepared. A serious planetary impact is a huge concern.
An asteroid can only affect the Earth if it strikes the planet. But a meteor will hit the Earth before it hits the planet. Small objects don’t threaten the Earth, but a large asteroid could destroy the Earth. A meteor’s impact on the ground will be fatal for humans and a planetary asteroid is much more dangerous. If a large asteroid hits the Earth, it could even kill them.
Though a major asteroid strike is rare, small asteroids hit the Earth all the time and create meteors and shooting stars. These impacts happen on time scales of hundreds to thousands of years, so we won’t be able to predict if an asteroid will hit the Earth. A massive asteroid would be even more destructive, destroying the atmosphere. In addition, a large asteroid would also be more hazardous for the planet’s ecosystem.