New Size Estimate Shows Recent Near Earth Asteroid (2012 LZ1) Would Have Ended Civilization

Here is a pretty cool online program that calculates the results of meteor impacts:

Impact Calculator

You can put in all sorts of types of meteors, their size, density, speed, angle of impact, etc.

For this 1km asteroid, I told it to be the densest material (iron), and gave it a speed of about 20 miles per second (average for these guys is about 17 miles per second). I have it an impact angle of 45 degrees and said that it hit bedrock ground (instead of the ocean).

It would leave a 12 to 17 mile wide complex crater. At 25 miles away: you are toast.

At 500 miles away, you'd hear something, and some vibrations, but wouldn't even see the fireball. (were as at 25 miles, the fireball would appear 17 times larger than the sun! woo-hoo!)

There would be some global impact on weather most likely, but a 1km wide asteroid is not a ELE event for the Earth. However, start going up to 1 mile wide or more and the story changes dramatically.

For giggles, I put in a 500 mile wide asteroid and my distance at about 6000 miles away from the impact zone. It said I would be in the fireball produced! Yow!

Anyways, have fun playing around with it.

Originally posted by amongus

Originally posted by paperface
Many reports have shown alien tech is preventing us being hit.Looking out for us

They have? Many?

Source?

While we are on the subject of help from aliens, I don't believe there is any tangible evidence of that, but nevertheless it is striking how, for example, a comet or meteor conveniently, or luckily, exploded in the air before hitting the ground at Tunguska in the early 1900's. That could heve been an earth-shattering event.
And regarding all these close shaves with asteroids just missing earth we are very lucky, aren't we?

This wont get that much play but in reallity it is the single most scary thing that has happend on this planet in my 43 years of life. If this object is as large as they say and could have wiped out life on earth or even a large region of Earth then it is the single most significant known event to have happend in my lifetime. To know there can be extinction sized asteroids sneaking up on us with only 3 days notice is a huge wake up call. I doubt however the power hungery self centered politicians we have running our country and the world will graps the significance of this and wont do a darn thing to help make sure we don't get wiped out.

This is now a national security issue but it will get ignored. I hope we do not all regret how apathetic we all are to how dangerous our Solar system really is to our continued existence.

Originally posted by Blastoff
...nevertheless it is striking how, for example, a comet or meteor conveniently, or luckily, exploded in the air before hitting the ground at Tunguska in the early 1900's. That could heve been an earth-shattering event.
And regarding all these close shaves with asteroids just missing earth we are very lucky, aren't we?

The atmosphere will do that sometimes to stuff trying to get through it. It really isn't luck -- it's just nature.

Air-burst meteors are not all that uncommon. The friction caused by the atmosphere creates too great a stress on a large meteor, and that meteor explodes in the atmosphere. Obviously, the Tunguska event would have been an exceptionally large air-burst pf a comet or meteor, but the idea is similar.

This isn't a big deal or anything. I mean, an asteroid that could have ended the world basically missed us by a cosmic inch.

Originally posted by v1rtu0s0
This isn't a big deal or anything. I mean, an asteroid that could have ended the world basically missed us by a cosmic inch.

The basic idea that big near-earth asteroids are out there is a big deal, but this particular one is not that big a deal, because it is simply one of many.

I'm sure it's not a coincidence that as soon as we create instruments and methods for finding near-earth objects that we suddenly start seeing them. It's almost certainly not the case that these objects just started coming around at the exact same time we started looking, but rather there have always been these large objects that come relatively close to the earth. We had just been blissfully unaware of them in the past

So again, it isn't THIS object, specifically, that is a big deal...but the very idea that these objects exist IS a big deal.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Right, but, as pointed out in my source, we didn't spot this one until it was too late, and it would have ended civilization. That is not a common occurance.

Originally posted by v1rtu0s0
reply to post by Soylent Green Is People

 

Right, but, as pointed out in my source, we didn't spot this one until it was too late, and it would have ended civilization. That is not a common occurance.

No no. It wasn't big enough to end civilization.

It would have been bad for where ever it hit, and there would have been effects from it, but again, you need a asteroid bigger than 1km to wipe out civilization on our planet.