Extinction-by-asteroid

@bunnyknight said
The tsunami and the blast wave would wash and blow away most surface life and stuff. Then the hot molten rock from ocean bottom would sweep across the planet causing every surface creature to bake and choke. Then any survivors would starve due to catastrophic food shortage, except possibly those chosen few in underground cities built for a decade or more of self-sufficiency.

@vivify said
What happens if this 10km planet killer landed in the middle of the ocean?

@wildgrass said
Maybe I'm thinking too optimistically for our current age, but this article gives me hope. Someone, somewhere, is thinking about solutions to possible existential threats and formulating arguments on feasibility, alternatives, timelines, etc.

This is a good thing I think. We don't have to just lie down and accept our extinction, we can find ways to overcome challenges.

@Suzianne
The Chixulub meteorite DID land in ocean, half ocean and half on land in Yucatan.

Geologists were able to show SEVEN HUNDRED foot debris layer from that asteroid on BURMUDA.

That is an unimaginable amount of raw power, a real life killer.

@wildgrass said
What self-inflicted actions would those be?

Climate change will be bad, but we'll survive. World wars will be bad, but we'll survive. Setting the entire earth on fire, killing all vegetable and animal life would be bad, but we'll survive.

The event above is the equivalent of 40,000x the current nuclear arsenal on the planet.

@venda said
The human race may survive in some way although I'm not sure how if all animal and vegetable life is destroyed but to quote Mr Spock "It's life Jim-but not as we know it"
We cannot really do anything about a giant asteroid-all the proposed solutions are just theory but we could do something about the way we live and the way it is destroying the planet,but we won't because it w ...[text shortened]... uld be too expensive.
Who was it that said the answer to 99 questions out of 100 is money?
So true

@wildgrass said
I agree we can incrementally improve our relationship with the planet, as a parallel action to mitigating the likelihood for a true extinction level event.

What are your solutions on that front? Probably the cleanest way to improve the health of the planet is to have less people living on it.

@venda said
As I said earlier,identifying and acting upon the difference between "want " and "need".
Do we need a motor car for every person in the family?
Do we need a 5 bed roomed house with 3 en suite bathrooms?
Do we need to fly thousands of miles twice a year for a holiday?
And yes,over population is a problem.
We once had a lad working with us whose solution ...[text shortened]... r everyone over 70 to be exterminated.
He'll be about 65 now.
I wonder if his opinion has changed?

@suzianne said
And no one would build such a city because of the massive costs here and now.

This is the same reason nothing will be done about global warming until it's too late.

@suzianne said
It doesn't matter how many solutions are thought up or dreamed up.

Social media and politicians will screw this one up for everybody.

Nothing was done about Covid until it was too late. Hundreds of thousands still died and we're right on track to see even more dead, perhaps as many as have already died.

@wildgrass said
How did you know I have a 5 bedroom house with three en suite bathrooms?

Fine. I could probably survive with two en suite bathrooms but that's it! Sometimes I NEED a little privacy alright?

@venda said
There's not much a Yorkshire man doesn't know.
According to a Yorkshire man that is

This is pretty basic, but still an interesting read from Astronomy.com:

What is the largest asteroid and comet considered to be a near-Earth object? How large are they?

Doug Kaupa
Council Bluffs, Iowa

Doomsday impactors are a staple of modern science fiction. The most famous real-world example of an impact wiping out much of the life on Earth is, of course, the object that took out the dinosaurs some 66 million years ago.

Thankfully, events of that magnitude are fairly uncommon, happening about once every few hundreds of millions of years. But the possibility is there, so space agencies around the globe have taken to monitoring the skies for near-Earth objects (NEOs). These objects are comets and asteroids whose orbits take them within 1.3 astronomical units (AU; where 1 AU is the average distance between Earth and the Sun) of our star.

On that note, the largest comets and asteroids tend to stay far enough away that we have very little to worry about. The largest asteroid considered a NEO is 1036 Ganymed. This asteroid is about 23 miles (37 kilometers) in diameter. With a closest solar approach of 1.24 AU, 1036 Ganymed is just within the minimum distance to categorize it as an NEO.

The largest comet in the sky today is 109P/Swift-Tuttle. At 16 miles (26 km), Swift-Tuttle is about twice the size of the object believed to have wiped out the dinosaurs. However, this comet poses little threat to us, as it makes its closest solar approach of 0.95 AU every 133 years. And, in fact, we have it to thank for the Perseid meteor shower.

It’s actually the little guys that we need to be more concerned about, as they’re more likely to sneak past our detection. Earth’s closest encounter on record with a known NEO was with 2020 VT4, which passed a mere 232 miles (375 km) above Earth’s surface Nov. 13, 2020. The asteroid was spotted only after it made its closest approach. The previous closest asteroid, 2020 QG, had skimmed past Earth just three months before 2020 VT4; it, too, was not seen prior to its close pass.

Caitlyn Buongiorno
Associate Editor

@wildgrass said
Fewer people would also mean fewer en suite bathrooms, Yorkshire man.