A shocking simulation has revealed what would happen if an enormous asteroid collided with Earth – and it’s not a pretty picture.
The simulation was created by the Discovery Channel back in 2008, but has been recirculating on Twitter this week.
It imagines what would happen if a 500km-wide asteroid struck the Pacific Ocean.
Shortly after the impact, a huge 10km area of the Earth’s crust peels off the surface, before a shockwave travels at hypersonic speeds.
Debris is blasted up into low Earth orbit, before returning to destroy the surface of the Earth.
This second impact causes a firestorm to encircle the Earth, vaporising all life in its way.
Worryingly, it takes just one day to make the surface of our entire planet uninhabitable. Cheerful stuff!
Thankfully, the chances of the simulation becoming a reality any time soon are very low.
NASA said: “NASA knows of no asteroid or comet currently on a collision course with Earth, so the probability of a major collision is quite small.
“In fact, as best as we can tell, no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years.”
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