Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Pushing the Reset Button

This is a very cool animation of what would happen if the Earth were struck by a large asteroid. If anything, I think it underestimates the damage, although just about the time I thought, "hey! there won't be any liquid water left!", the seas dried up. I'm also not sure the post-collision shape of the planet is correct. The relaxation time for the collision should be a few thousand years I think.

Anyway, enjoy!

2 comments:

Brian Dunbar said...

I uttered a Reavesian 'whoa'.

Thanks for sharing.

richmanwisco said...

Asteroid? Hell, that was a planetoid! Question is, how many bodies that size are still floating around out there? I'd have to believe we've identified just about all of them. It's the smaller ones that could still slip through and cause large amounts of damage, but not quite apocalyptic.

Intriguing all the same. It illustrates just how enormous an amount of energy could be released. I believe we can thank Jupiter for soaking up many of those bodies and making our solar system a safer place to live.