How to Survive a Killer Asteroid

• The 17th century saw Galilieo exploring the moon using his telescope, wondering how craters were formed.
• Two centuries later, astronomers like Franz von Gruithuisen proposed that asteroids were responsible for the same, a theory that was rejected.
• The perfect circular shape of the moon’s craters misled scientists into believing these are mountains. Later the Russian astronomer Nikolai Morozov concluded through a series of experiments that the craters were indeed formed by asteroids.

• When a high-impact asteroid or smaller rocks known as meteors rush towards Earth, the atmosphere behaves like it is water being hit by pebbles.
• The rocks burn away in the friction when colliding with the atmosphere, with the giant asteroids (those the size of a mountain) having the ability to wipe out entire life from the planet.
• The fall is at a speed of more than 10 miles per second, and ensures that even air cannot escape the impact area, and gets heated thousands of degrees in an instant.
• The compressed, super-hot air vaporizes the surrounding area. The impact does not give time to rocks to shatter or crumble, and they start to flow, instantly turning liquid.

A vertical ‘sploosh’ results from an impact with an asteroid, with the earth rising at 1000 miles per hour to create mountains taller than Mt. Everest, only to instantly collapse due to continuous explosions, leaving behind a ring known as the ‘Peak Ring’.

The impact’s energy measurement is approximately 1,300,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 kilojoules for the size of a rock that can destroy our planet. The temperatures created on impact exceed that of the surface of the Sun.

• If an asteroid the size of Chicxulub hit earth on the same spot in Mexico, one could get killed in Texas, be deaf in New York, and lose the car window panes at Buenos Aires (Argentina).
• If a resulting tsunami doesn’t get you, you might have a better chance near the ocean to survive. It is also a good idea to hide in a cave, shielding from the impact of trillions of shattered glass bullets(which in large quantities cause firestorms in the air).
• Surviving the resulting heat is tricky, and a large tropical island might be the safest place to be. Another option is to find a mountainous region with a livable temperature, deep caves and less rainfall. One can eat the plants and animals (carefully) to survive.