Asteroids
By: Mikki • Essay • 521 Words • November 30, 2009 • 1,442 Views
Essay title: Asteroids
The universe is a shooting gallery and earth is the bullseye. The earth is always under threat of a doomesday asteroid that will wipe out civilization. There are over one thousand asteroids traveling toward earth and only three quarters are accounted for. Where are the other one forth? No one knows because the government doesn't fund NASA astrologists enough to cover the astroids. Just one impact could end civilization as we know it. No matter where it hits everything would die, even bacteria. To give an estimate how much is spent on asteroid detection. It is said to be less than the cost to operate a single McDonald's franchise. Total disaster would occur no matter where the asteroid hit. Land, sea it doesn't matter. Ocean impact would create a number of things. First, a Tsunami(tidal wave) would be created on impact. The wave would be hundreds for feet high traveling hundreds of miles per hour. It would start to slow down crashing ashore through all coastal city. Then, finally wash up hundreds for miles inland. " The mid-Atlantic Ocean impact ranging from 400 meters to 5 kilometers in diameter. This would generate a tsunami that would sweep across the upper East Coast of the United States to the Appalachian Mountains."(Gottschalk 1) The blast of the impact would equal a 300 gigaton blast of T.N.T. Also, 2.4 seconds after impact, a small fireball with a temperature of 5000'C would sweep across long island. A land fall strike would cause total divistation. The asteroid would create a earth trembling impact causing earth quakes around the world. The binding flash will show impact and the crater would be twenty miles across. Then, a blanket of dust and debris would blanket the earth and block the sun's light. This would occur for hundreds of years and the climate would be disrupted. Global killer no matter where it hits. The