Asteroids’ impact ranks highest on the UN‘s list of potential extinction-level events. They’ve inspired numerous films and books, some accurately depicting what would happen if an asteroid hit Earth, and others not.
If you’ve ever wondered what would be the result if different-sized asteroids hit different parts of the world, then the Internet has an app for you!
Asteroid Launcher
AsteroidLauncher is an app that helps you control three different parts of your asteroid – its size, speed, and angle that it hits Earth. You can also choose when it lands.
How does It work?
Once you’ve opened it up, for better or worse, it points straight at Manhattan. You can select an asteroid from anywhere in the world by clicking on its location. You then choose the desired asteroid’s properties (such as its diameter, mass, velocity, etc.) and click “launch.”
Out of morbid curiosity, the author decided to blast his town with an Asteroids game using the default options.
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He was glad to learn that he’d probably be among the almost 15,000 people who would die in the 5.6-mile-wide crater the simulated meteoroid would create. That sounded like a much better option for him than the other ways of dying described by the simulator.
Impact
A 10-kiloton nuclear bomb exploding at ground zero would kill approximately 1.8 million people, while nearly 160,000 would be killed by a shockwave alone.
If the asteroid were to hit Earth, approximately 614,000 people would be killed by a strong tornado, whereas only 2,000 people would be injured by the earthquake caused by the asteroid.
At the end of the day, the number of deaths caused by the earthquake would be somewhere between 3 and 4 million people.
Not quite on the same level as when an asteroid struck New York City, but still pretty bad. What happens if the asteroid strikes some of the 70 percent of the Earth that is underwater?
Fortunately, the author also lives close to one of these large bodies of water called the Great Lakes in North America. If he launches a rock into them, they change some of the outcomes, such as making the hole smaller.
However, it doesn’t mention anything about a tsunami, or any other type of water-related disaster, that viewers of Deep Impact might expect.
Moving the impact site from land to sea gives an estimate of the size of a tsunami and an impressive number for that.
However, unlike the other ways of destroying a city, it doesn’t specify how many people would die if that happened. It is arguably more dangerous than the other ways of destroying cities listed in the game.
It’s an entertaining way to reinforce the importance of planetary protection. We’ve discussed this topic multiple times here at UT before.
It’d be nice if it had some updated estimates and an improved understanding of where water is located on Earth, but it’d still be worth watching for entertainment purposes.
Have you tried this tool? What are your views? Tell us in the comments section below.
We’ve written about a few really interesting technologies. If you’re interested, check out our articles.