Could we stop a massive asteroid from hitting the Earth?
No, but several groups around the world are working on ways to deflect or destroy an asteroid on a collision course with Earth. If an asteroid of sufficient size (estimates are around strikes the Earth, it will cause global devastation. Small objects are hitting the earth all the time. Statistics show that: – asteroids 1 km in diameter hit Earth every 500,000 years on average – asteroids 5 km in diameter hit Earth every ten million years on average – asteroids 5 -10 meters in diameter hit Earth’s atmosphere about once a year (with about the same amount of energy as the Hiroshima bomb) – they usually explode in the upper atmosphere, and most or all of the solids are vaporized – objects over 50 meters hit Earth about once every thousand years, producing explosions comparable to the one observed at Tunguska in 1908 No asteroids are known to be on a collision course at this time – the only one of concern right now is 99942 Apophis, but it has a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting us and that’s n
