Sandia National Labs ("Securing a Peaceful and Free World Through Technology") worked out a complex computer simulation of an asteroid 1.4 kilometers in diameter striking the Atlantic Ocean 25 miles south of Brooklyn.
According to Sandia, an impact of this magnitude can be expected to occur on Earth about once every 300,000 years. These projectiles are called Near Earth Objects, or NEOs.
NASA is actually quite concerned about NEOs. Several teams of astronomers worldwide are surveying the sky to find them. Statistically, NASA says, you have about one chance in 40,000 of dying as a result of a collision.
Two small asteroids flew close by on September 8th. You can see all the asteroids and other NEOs that pass nearby here and here.
A company called Spaceworks Engineering Inc (SEI), with a grant from NASA, designed an approach to deflect an asteroid or comet before it hits the Earth. It's called Modular Asteroid Deflection Mission Ejector Node, or (and we're not joking), "MADMEN."
Top illustration by Don Davis, courtesy of NASA. Two renderings by Sandia National Labs.
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