Simulator makes eerie prediction for what could happen if NASA mission fails next week
dailystar.co.ukNASA's latest mission fails next week. On Monday, the asteroid-deflecting mission plans to deliberately crash into a 530-ft-wide non-harmful asteroid named Dimorphos at almost 15,000 miles per hour.
The mission, called DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), hopes to show that a spacecraft can deflect an object which could put Earth at risk. READ MORE Girl, 6, climbs onto 40st squash as part of bizarre mega-sized vegetable competitionProfessor Gretchen Benedix, of the Space Science and Technology Center, told Newsweek: "Roughly an object 100 meters in diameter is likely to create a crater about 1 kilometre across on Earth. "If that hits a densely populated area, that could be quite bad but overall not devastating for the region or the Earth.
An object this size is estimated to hit the Earth every 10,000 years." Researchers at Imperial College London and Purdue University, developed a stimulator tool which predicts the environmental consequences of an impact.The team have since made a newer version of the tool which allows users to plot the possible outcomes onto a mapping tool which is similar to Google Earth.
Thermal radiation can be caused by an impacting object. If the space rock hits with sufficient velocity, it will create a fireball, according to the tool.
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