An asteroid comparable to the one which was responsible for the end of dinosaurs is set to hit earth once again and this time, it will wipe out all of humanity!
The asteroid that wiped out the entire dinosaurs species about 66 million years ago was estimated to be around 10 miles wide.
However, the chances of asteroids of that size hitting earth again are extremely rare, but the scientist said that another significant collision is inevitable.
NASA has made many discoveries of near-Earth objects that are over one kilometer in size, with 90 percent of the objects accounted for under supervision.
However, that means there is still 10 percent of potentially fatal asteroids that we have not yet been discovered.
While the chances of the asteroid of a magnitude same or greater than the one that wiped out dinosaurs are rare, NASA has said that there is a one in 300,000 chance every year that a space rock which could cause regional damage will hit the devastating prospect is not impossible.
And when that asteroid strikes the Earth, it would be the end of humanity.
Physicist Rob van den Berg wrote on Q&A site Quora, “Small asteroids are of course pretty harmless, they evaporate in the atmosphere before they reach the ground.
“If they do reach the ground they don’t do all that much damage (compared to what they can do). Sure, it will cost a lot to repair all the windows, but it’s extremely unlikely to get hit by one (as far as I know, only two recorded cases of that in all our history).
“The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs had a size of about 10 miles and such impacts only happen every several million years (since this particular one was the last, it has been 65 million years now).
“But no matter how small the chance of it happening in our lifetime, it is pretty much destined that another big one will eventually hit Earth again, sometime in the future.”
However, NASA has said that even an asteroid having a comparatively much smaller magnitude, it still has the ability to cause chaos on the planet.
Even an asteroid of one-kilometer width can still create devastating effects on the planet.
NASA said, “An individual’s chance of being killed by a meteorite is small, but the risk increases with the size of the impacting comet or asteroid, with the greatest risk associated with global catastrophes resulting from impacts of objects larger than 1 kilometer.”
However, the space agency said that they’re not predicting an asteroid of that size to hit Earth until several centuries; this reassured the frightened minds.
The space boffins 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. As best as we can tell, no large object is likely to strike the Earth any time in the next several hundred years.”
