Potential risk to Earth from asteroid smash could be higher than thought
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Dinosaurs witnessed the wrath of a massive space rock striking the planet with incredible force. The catastrophic event was so powerful that it completely wiped out these massive beasts from the planet. And so, whenever there's a report of an asteroid passing through Earth, it does send shivers down one's spine.
NASA's Near-Earth-Object tracking systems have been able to predict the passage of such asteroids by our planet from afar. However, we don't know how large and energetic this impact could be in the worst-case scenario.
Goddard Space Flight Center's chief scientist, James Garvin, and his team went on to find the answer to this troubling question.
The researchers looked at large impact craters that occurred within the last million years on Earth.
The actual size of impact craters is bigger than estimated
The team precisely measured the size of the recent impact craters. Worryingly, their analysis revealed that the crater sizes were larger than previously calculated. Simply put, the Earth and its environment would take a direct hit after being smashed by an asteroid. "It would be in the range of serious crap happening," Garvin told Science.
To carry out this analysis, the team used a database of high-resolution satellite imagery to closely identify large, weathered rings around four impact craters found on the Earth. They also created 3D maps of the four craters to get the exact size.
The findings revealed that some of the outer rims were much wider than previously documented. For example, the Zhamanshin crater in Kazakhstan was discovered to be 19 miles (30 kilometers) wide rather than eight miles (13 kilometers). To put into perspective, the wider the rings, the more violent the impact event. The study also suggests that even minor impacts could jolt the planet and cause a famine-like situation to last for years.
Scientists had previously overlooked the true size due to Earth's dynamism, such as water, wind, and tectonics, which erase the rims around the craters. As a result, the faint outer rims were obscured.
The findings were announced at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.
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