Asteroid Impacts
Asteroid Impacts
Recent films like Deep Impact and Armageddon have dramatized this human extinction scenario, an asteroid hitting the Earth. In 2013, a real-life asteroid appeared without warning in Chelyabinsk, Russia. About 20 meters wide, it hurled into the Earth's atmosphere at over 40,000 miles per hour. Only the angle it came in at and its relatively small size prevented damage and destruction on a massive scale. But what would happen if a not-at-all uncommon mile-wide asteroid hit the Earth at this speed? Quite probably it would wipe out the human race. The tremendous explosion it would cause upon impact would fling so much dust into the atmosphere that the sun would be completely blocked off, plant life and crops would die, severe acid rain would kill ocean life, and fiery debris would cause firestorms worldwide. Result of this threat: mass death and chaos.