It could happen at any moment, no doubt about it. We still remember the effects of the Chelyabinsk meteor, and with that, the question becomes inevitable: What would happen if something bigger hit us? The Asteroid Launcher portal helps us get the answer, simulating the impact of an asteroid anywhere in the world... even your home. Set the speed, the diameter, the angle of impact, and unleash chaos on Earth...
NASA's DART mission proved that with the right tools, humanity can modify the behavior of an asteroid. DART managed to shorten the orbital period of the object Dimorphos by 32 minutes, exceeding the minimum target of 73 seconds. The main resource for a maneuver of this nature is always time... but what if we don't have it? An asteroid can go unnoticed until it's too late, unleashing all its kinetic fury on the planet's surface. The Asteroid Launcher portal invites us to simulate the impact of an asteroid and evaluate its terrible consequences.
Simulate an Asteroid Impact on Your City with Asteroid Launcher
The site is a creation of Neal Agarwal, whom we remember well for the project that lets us explore the depths of the ocean. This time, all we have to do is select the impact zone and define four parameters of the asteroid: the type of material, diameter, speed, and impact angle.
After clicking the launch button, Asteroid Launcher presents a report in four phases. The first tells us about the size of the crater, the number of people vaporized by the impact, the energy equivalent in megatons (or gigatons), and the time interval between impacts. The second describes the effects of the shockwave, the death toll, and the effects on lungs, ears, buildings, and homes. The third phase focuses on wind currents, and finally we find the earthquake, its magnitude on the Richter scale, the maximum distance at which it would be felt, and of course, more deaths.
Personally, I must highlight the impressive differences between materials (for example, iron releases twice as much energy as stone), but the site doesn't go into long-term effects, and the maximum of the simulation reaches 1.5 kilometers in diameter: The impact that created the Chicxulub crater suggests an asteroid over 10 kilometers in diameter, traveling at 20 kilometers per second. Kurzgesagt did a fabulous job on this topic
Official site: Click here
