In these cases, a spectacular, bright bolide will be seen. Many people were injured that day about 1, , not by the meteorites —the bolide passed at a distance of 42 km from the Russian city— but by the sonic shock wave, which blew out many windows right when the onlookers were standing nearby, staring at the meteor trail. Incredible as it may seem, asteroid impact events capable of releasing as much energy as an atomic bomb are very frequent, with about one of these happening every six months, on average.
How do we know? Thanks to the military surveillance satellites that monitor the Earth. While their main function is to detect man-made explosions, they have also revealed that collisions with interplanetary objects are normal. Every impact event produces a spectacular bolide and a deafening shock wave; however, most of these occur over the sea or in remote areas with few inhabitants.
Now, suppose we detect an asteroid larger than 30 meters on a collision course with the Earth. Is there anything we can do to stop the collision? Currently, the answer is no. However, providing early warnings to the inhabitants of the areas most likely to be affected could save millions of lives, as is the case with hurricanes. Technology may someday allow us to deflect an asteroid on a collision course while it is still far away.
A slight push would be enough to modify its trajectory and stop the collision. You see, an asteroid is very porous. It is made up of loosely packed material. Bombarding an asteroid in an attempt to destroy it is like trying to deflect a pillow thrown at us by shooting at it with a gun.
Some feathers would certainly fly up in the air, but we would still be hit. The experiment poses NO threat, as it will not be conducted on potentially hazardous asteroids near the Earth. In that place, systematic and automatized asteroid surveys are conducted using a huge telescope 1.
On the date of the discovery, the Earth had a fleeting encounter —too brief— with this celestial body. In less than 30 hours, and with only 14 measurements made, the asteroid became too faint to be seen with the detectors. After all, as I mentioned earlier, asteroids and comets are often very small and dark. While the span of observations was long enough to determine its general trajectory orbit, period, inclination , the existing margin of error does not allow to pinpoint its precise location on its orbit today.
However, there is no doubt the next encounter will occur on October 3, Do you remember how in the Avengers movie Dr. Strange looked at 14 million futures to find out there was only one chance of emerging victorious? Well, astronomers do something similar with the aid of computers, and after analyzing more than 11 million possible scenarios, they discover there is only one chance that the asteroid will collide with the Earth. In this case, the chance of an impact event occurring remains ridiculously small.
The tiny fraction of uncertainty derives from the fact the asteroid has not been seen since If it hits the Gulf of Mexico it will send a tsunami up to ten feet high ten miles inland across Texas and Louisiana.
If it hits the ground it will wipe out everything within a three-mile radius and cause major destruction several miles farther out. In the more likely event that it explodes in the air, the damage will be spread over an even wider area.
In fact, even before it hits, the asteroid is already doing damage. As you might expect, housing and other property values plummet within the risk corridor. Businesses shut down, people are out of work. The Texas Gulf Coast area accounts for a quarter of the U.
In response, the White House orders a freeze on gas prices nationwide, which causes an artificial gas shortage and long lines at the pumps. FEMA starts making evacuation plans and pre-positioning disaster relief supplies. The Texas governor has already activated the Texas National Guard, and working with FEMA he orders mandatory evacuations from a wide area around Pasadena, involving hundreds of thousands of people.
So when they finally do leave, the roads and highways are jammed. And as with hurricanes, some people flatly refuse to go. Churches are filled up; so are the bars. Finally, on September 5, seven years after asteroid TTX was discovered, after all the dithering and debate and partially failed efforts to stop it, the yard-wide space rock screams into the atmosphere in a fireball brighter than the Sun.
And a few seconds later—goodbye, Pasadena. From Fire in the Sky by Gordon Dillow. Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature. By Gordon L. But then the odds of an impact get better—or rather, worse. Gordon L. Dillow Gordon Dillow has been a reporter, columnist, and war correspondent for more than 30 years. He lives in Scottsdale, Arizona. Close to the Lithub Daily Thank you for subscribing!
Even the meter-wide asteroids that could destroy cities and regions hit once every 10, years. And the risk of even being injured from a meter object — like the one that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, in and hurt nearly 1, people — is tiny. So instead of being worried about asteroids killing us, we should look at them in wonder.
Asteroids are fascinating because they represent the leftover building blocks of the planets in our solar system. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. What would it take to blow up an asteroid? The force of 10 million atomic bombs. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. This is the asteroid Eros. It has a diameter of around How hard can it be to destroy a kilometer-wide asteroid? When a large asteroid is pummeled by a smaller one, gravity keeps much of it together One fascinating thing that happens when an asteroid is hit but is not destroyed is that much of the rubble that flies off after the collision is eventually pulled back toward the intact core of the asteroid via gravity.
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