A programmer has created a website that simulates the impact of a meteorite on Earth and its aftermath. You can vary the parameters depending on the type of object and thus determine the damage that such an event would cause if it happened. It can be frightening and highlights the need for a planetary defense program. I simulated the impact of a one kilometer diameter asteroid in the suburbs of New York.
One of the greatest moments in space in 2022, which even went down in history, was the successful test of the deflection of a small asteroid – which did not threaten us – by a device – kamikaze, dart, crashing onto its surface. It was last September and its trajectory was actually (slightly) modified. Scientists continue to study the consequences of this deep impact to prepare us well in the event of planetary threats…like those that afflicted dinosaurs and more than 70% of life on Earth 66 million years ago. It was certainly a large object (perhaps a comet), estimated to be 10 kilometers across, with an estimated risk of impact at around 100 million years.
Dart Mission: Mankind has managed to deflect an asteroid for the first time in history!
So currently (and for at least centuries) there are no such threats on the horizon, but scientists are aware that a small “accident” with a smaller body size can happen “quickly”, with damage and destruction on a regional scale. For this reason, an international planetary defense program was launched.
I simulated the impact of a miles wide NEO on New York!
If you are curious what the fall of a large meteorite could do to your area or another of your choice, Neal Agarwal, “creative programmer”, had fun making a website simulating impacts on Earth. To do it well, it offers you to see how it would look with different sizes and compositions of celestial objects by varying the impact trajectories, the collision angles and of course the speed. Because not everyone is storming our planet at the same speed or from the same direction. Some meteorites can be more massive and dense, as we have seen, while others are more porous, moreover, the latter can explode and fragment at low altitudes in the sky, while the larger ones, as we imagine, form large craters several kilometers in diameter, accompanied by devastating ones Shock waves that devastate everything in their path for hundreds of kilometers.
Does the experience appeal to you? So off to the Asteroid Launcher. Each simulation describes the damage: from the depth and diameter of the crater to the number of casualties and injuries caused and even how far from impact your clothes would catch fire if this horrific situation happened!
Animation of the 14,000 asteroids identified in the Gaia satellite’s first survey. © ESA, Gaia, DPAC, CC BY SA 3.0 IGO
I simulated the fall of a one-kilometer-diameter asteroid—like 2022 AP7, the recently discovered “planet killer” that joins the approximately 30,000 previously known NEOs that regularly intersect Earth’s orbit—in the suburbs of New York. With an angle of 29° and a speed of 21 km/s. The result: a crater 12 kilometers (still!) and 619 meters deep. Our clothes would burn if we were less than 110 kilometers from the impact! Impressive.
A large asteroid hurtling towards Europa could not be deflected…
Is such an assumption realistic? Yes, but it’s quite rare, it has to be said. For the site, this would happen every 514,000 years on average. In any case, one thing is certain if it were to happen one day: Manhattan and its surroundings would be desolate because most buildings within a radius of 212 kilometers of the impact would collapse. The number of victims would be in the millions. So we understand why it was time for humanity to set out an ambitious planetary defense program so that this never happens and no city or region is one day reduced to ashes. While Asteroid Launcher may be fun, it is not a game.