8 Things That Will Happen If an Asteroid Hits Earth

We’ve
all seen the movies about asteroids colliding with our planet, we’ve
also read the news about near misses of asteroids flying close to us.
Of course, many of us know that it is thought an asteroid hitting
earth finished off the dinosaurs, in fact, this impact is thought to
have wiped out 80% of all life on our planet, allowing mammals and
eventually humans to thrive. But what would actually happen if an
asteroid hit us? Check out these 8 facts about an asteroid armageddon
event…

The asteroid itself

The dinosaur-killing asteroid itself is probably the most famous of asteroids to hit our planet, so what if a exact twin of this asteroid hit us tomorrow? It is thought that the asteroid was 10km in diameter and created a crater of around 180km wide in the earth’s crust. Of course, it wasn’t just the hole, the energy released by the impact vaporised the asteroid itself instantly and then wiped out most of life on earth. But even this event would not blow our planet into pieces, nor would it instantly kill all life on earth, there would be some survivors both animal and human alike to repopulate the planet.

The asteroid | 8 Things That Will Happen If an Asteroid Hits Earth | Brain Berries

2. Before the asteroids impact

NASA
has given some advice on what do if a large asteroid does crash into
us, it simply reads ‘pray’! In reality, we would probably get a
few months of warning as the asteroid itself would be very easy to
spot. A few months is not a long time at all to dig bunkers or make
people safe, or at this point in time, we do not have the technology
to deflect or change the asteroid’s course. The time would need to be
spent making safe places for as many of us as possible either by
going underground or underwater as far from the crash zone as
possible!

Before the asteroids impact | 8 Things That Will Happen If an Asteroid Hits Earth | Brain Berries

3. Final Approach

Of
course, the whole world would be in a state of panic even though for
most of the time the sky would remain as it is now. Only 24 hours or
so before impact would we actually see the asteroid in the sky (all
be it at night and not very big). Around 3 hours before impact we may
feel the full impact of what is about to happen with a bright object
in the sky even in twilight (If you see an asteroid in the day it is
probably only minutes from impact). As the asteroid gets closer it
would remain silent even as it enters the atmosphere at many times
the speed of sound.

Asteroid Final Approach | 8 Things That Will Happen If an Asteroid Hits Earth | Brain Berries

4. Impact

When
the asteroid finally hits the earth a force of 100 trillion tons of
TNT or more than a billion Hiroshima bombs would be imposed on us.
The earth’s crust is instantly vaporised and a fireball four times
the size of the sun is created, grass, trees and anything within
1200km will be burnt instantly, followed by an immense air blast that
would flatten buildings within 1000km. The sound of the impact would
be way more than our ears can stand, however, if you are still alive,
sorry but it doesn’t end here….

Asteroid Impact | 8 Things That Will Happen If an Asteroid Hits Earth | Brain Berries

5. Fallout

Your
only real chance of surviving all this is if you are on the other
side of the planet to the impact zone, yet even here you will hear
and indeed feel the impact. Damage will still be inflicted upon to
structures more than 5000km away from the collision zone. Anything
ejected from the impact will be shot miles into the air heating our
atmosphere by some 1500 degrees centigrade. This would cause forest
fires and the sky would darken as the suns light is blocked by the
dust. Most people will need to stay in the safety bunkers for some
time.

Asteroid Fallout | 8 Things That Will Happen If an Asteroid Hits Earth | Brain Berries

6. A different world awaits

The
many vaporised minerals in the atmosphere isn’t good news at all,
even though the atmosphere would start to cool down over time some
minerals would combine with water to produce acid rain. The worldwide
temperature would drop dramatically changing ecosystems and combined
with the acid rain most of our plant life would be destroyed. Without
plants, the herbivores would die and then carnivores would die. This
is what experts think happened to the dinosaurs, however, maybe us
humans would be able to survive all this?

A different world awaits | 8 Things That Will Happen If an Asteroid Hits Earth | Brain Berries

7. Life after the event

The
dinosaurs took time to die out, but they did not have shelters, food
preservation, high tech gadgets and machinery or TV! If we did have
months (or years) of warning surviving could be an option for some of
us, society would not be the same of course, we could use seed stores
to re-grow food and maybe even produce meat again. Or maybe like the
dinosaurs, we will not survive and a new dominant species would start
to thrive and outdo us to become the planets new dominant species!

Life after the event | 8 Things That Will Happen If an Asteroid Hits Earth | Brain Berries

8. Don’t Panic!

Asteroids come in many forms and sizes, an asteroid the size of a house would create energy the same as the Hiroshima bomb demolishing a city for example, but this wouldn’t be a cataclysmic event. Many scientists think that we are pretty safe for the foreseeable future with impacts similar to the dinosaur-killing asteroid only happening once every hundred million years or so… Phew.