Asteroid Launcher: See what would happen if a mega asteroid hit your home, city or state
What would happen if a devastating asteroid hit your hometown or state? Thanks to a new web app, you can find out who, or what, would survive.
The new web app Asteroid Launcher gives people the chance to see the effects of an asteroid hitting anywhere on Earth. The app was created by programmer Neal Agarwal, who has created other online apps on Neal.Fun like "Days Since Incident," "Life Stats" and "Spend Bill Gates' Money."
Although this may cause fascination or panic, there's no immediate concern about an asteroid actually hitting Earth. Even though there are thousands of potentially hazardous asteroids, none are projected to threaten our planet anytime soon. And in case there is one, NASA has a plan after the agency successful crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid to change its course in September.
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How to use Asteroid Launcher
You can use Asteroid Launcher by clicking on the website, on your phone or desktop.
First you'll choose what type of asteroid will hit Earth, choosing from one made of stone, iron, carbon, gold or comet.
You then decide how big the asteroid will be, ranging from a diameter of 3 feet to a mile. Users can also change the impact speed from 1,000 miles per hour up to 250,000 miles per hour. The final thing to adjust is the asteroid's impact angle, from 5 degrees to 90 degrees.
After you're done picking the asteroid, you then select on a global map where you want the impact to be. You can zoom in and out of the map, giving you the chance to pick your home, business or any location to be the center of the impact zone.
Once done, hit "Launch asteroid" and you'll see an animation of the impact. It will then give you statistics, such as how big the crater is, as well as how many estimated deaths happened because of the impact and subsequent fireball, shock wave, winds or earthquake. You could also see how many buildings or trees were destroyed, and if people suffered any damages such as loss of hearing.
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Asteroid Launcher example
There was a minor scare in 2021 over fears the mega asteroid Aphosis was going to hit Earth, only to realize we are safe from the space rock for at least the next 100 years.
But let's use the estimated 1,100-foot asteroid as an example. If we target the asteroid to hit Times Square in New York City at 68,000 miles per hour with a 45-degree impact angle, it would create a 4.3-mile crater. In addition to an estimated 503,000 people killed by the impact, more than 7.5 million more would die from a near 7-mile-wide fireball.
Buildings within 47 miles would collapse, trees within 67 miles would be knocked down and a 6.9 magnitude earthquake would be felt 119 miles away.
Follow Jordan Mendoza on Twitter: @jordan_mendoza5.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Asteroid Launcher: How to see the impact of one hitting your home
