How big would an asteroid have to be to wipe out Earth?

about 96 km
Ultimately, scientists estimate that an asteroid would have to be about 96 km (60 miles) wide to completely and utterly wipe out life on our planet.

How much damage would a mile wide asteroid do?

If a mile-wide asteroid hit Earth, it would strike the planet’s surface at about 30,000 mph. An asteroid that big traveling at that speed has the energy roughly equal to a 1 million megaton bomb. It’s very likely that an asteroid like this would wipe out most of life on the planet.

What if Ceres hit the Earth?

Asteroid Ceres is an enormous 296 miles (476 km) across, meaning if Earth were the size of a 1p coin, the space rock would be about the size of a seed. Most of the resulting debris following the impact would rain back down on the every part of the planet, not just near the impact site.

How big do meteoroids have to be to hit the ground?

4 Answers. Surprisingly, most of the meteoroids that reach the ground are especially small — from microscopic debris to dust-particle-size pieces. Typically, though, a meteoroid would have to be about the size of a marble for a portion of it to reach the Earth’s surface. Smaller particles burn up in the atmosphere about 50 to 75 miles…

How far underground would you need to be to survive a bomb?

How Far Underground To Survive A Nuclear Blast To survive a nuclear blast, you would need to be at least 3 feet deep underground. Also, you need to be at least 36 inches of concrete or tightly-packed dirt to shield you from the blast radius. The longer answer is, it depends on the size and power of the nuclear bomb.

What is the mass of an asteroid that can penetrate the atmosphere?

If an asteroid of diameter D and density ρ is to penetrate the atmosphere, its mass of 1 / 6 π ρ D 3 should be larger than the mass of the atmosphere it will encounter on its way to the ground, which is 5 / 2 π 10 3 D 2 kg/m 2. Therefore:

How big is the dust that causes meteors?

If you’ve spent much time looking up at the night sky, you’ve probably seen some spectacular meteors and meteor showers. One of the most amazing things about these displays is that the majority of the space dust that causes visible meteors is tiny — between the size of a grain of sand and the size of a small pebble.