Featured Image Credit: YouTube/MetaBallStudios
Topics: Space, Technology
Callum Jones
A shocking simulation has shown the devastating impact a real known asteroid hitting Earth would have.
The talk about whether an asteroid hitting Earth could be a possibility is one that has been talked about for many a generation.
Of course, there have been many conspiracy theories surrounding the matter, while simulation footage has even been able to provide us with an idea of the mass destruction an asteroid living on Earth would cause.
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Perhaps nothing more terrifying than a video uploaded to YouTube by MetaBallStudios, where a simulation of different sized asteroids hitting Earth is played out.
The first asteroid documented on the video is of 4 metres, with an explosion height of 40km.
The impact area is New York City, and the impact is quite significant.
In the footage you can see the Statue of Liberty being absolutely decimated, with a crater of 1.16km.
Well, that particular asteroid is the smallest destruction showcased in the simulation footage, with the devastation worsening as the YouTube video progresses.
For example, an asteroid with the impact area of Rome causes mass destruction across the whole of Europe thanks to a 100km size.
This massive asteroid causes a massive 840km crater, something that is truly unimaginable.
A small portion of the simulation footage has since been re-uploaded to Reddit, with many flocking to the comments section.
"Man, Italy really gets f**ked at the end. Granted, I’d probably want to be there so it’s faster than instant…" one person penned.
"So glad I live in the southern hemisphere," a second added.
"I do wonder why the asteroids have it out for NYC so bad though..." a third pointed out.
In the realms of closer possibilities, NASA has predicted a previously 'lost' asteroid could hit Earth as early as this year.
The asteroid in question is the catchily-named Asteroid 2007 FT3, which was first spotted in 2007 before quickly going missing.
Now, however, it has been predicted that there is a chance that the asteroid could hit Earth.
While the asteroid is not large enough to cause an extinction level event from its impact, it's certainly large enough to do a lot of damage to a continent.
If it did hit the Earth, it could unleash the energy of around 2.6 billion tons of TNT.
That's around 2600 megatons of TNT, or around 48 Tsar Bombas, the largest nuclear warhead ever detonated.
It's still less than the explosive power of every nuclear weapon in existence, which has been estimated at around 4,000 megatons. So that's some comfort at least.