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What Would Actually Happen if the Asteroid Hit Earth Today? - TechAmok
What Would Actually Happen if the Asteroid Hit Earth Today? - [briefly] 08:07 AM EST - Feb,15 2013 - post a comment Astronomers are completely confident that the 150-foot-wide asteroid 2012 DA14 is not going to hit us, passing "only" at 17,200 miles from Earth-the closest encounter with an asteroid ever predicted. It's a close call, but we will be safe. But then again, a meteor just crashed in Russia. So what would really happen if their calculations are wrong?
To answer this, first we should find out how much energy 2012 DA14 could release if it crashed against our planet. According to Denton EbelChair of the Division of Physical Sciences and Curator of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the American Museum of National Historythree other scientists asked themselves this question in 2010: Robert Marcus, H. Jay Melosh, and Gareth Collins.
Ebel says that Marcus et al calculated the kinetic energy of a 50-meter-wide asteroid with a density of 2.6 grams per cubic centimeter and a speed of 12.7 kilometers per second hitting Earth at a 45 degree angle. This would be a similar scenario to 2012 DA14, which is only five meters smaller and, in the opinion of Ebel, "could have a density of about 2.6 grams per cubic centimeter" since it is a stony asteroid too.
Marcus, Melosh and Collins' calculations resulted in 3.3 Megatons of kinetic energy at entry, with an airburst energy of 2.9 Megatons at about 8.5 kilometers from the surface, "about the cruise altitude of passenger jets."
This means that an asteroid like this would likely explode in the air, releasing the energy equivalent of about 138 atomic bombs like the one that the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay dropped over Hiroshima on August 9, 1945. Or, if you would like a more modern equivalent, 2012 DA14 could have exploded with the energy of nine W87 nuclear warheads like the ones carried by the American Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.
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