Question

(5) Describe the consequences of a 10-km asteroid striking Earth?

Answer 1

Solution) An asteroid 10 km is massive so it is hard to slow down . So unlike small meteors it will not be slowed down much by air friction . It punches through the atmosphere like its hardly even there . When it reaches the surface , it will smack very hard that it does'nt matter if it strikes ocean or land . The impact with earth's crust will finally stop the asteroid . And the energy of impact will vaporize the asteroid and a large amount of earths crust ., creating a crater more than one hundred km across throwing all rock into air.

So during this time some of this debris will be going so fast that it will fly right out of earths atmosphere and go into orbit around the earth . Then most of the debris rains back down on earth on every part of earth heating the atmosphere thereby triggering forest fires and cooking anything that isn't sheltered underground .

So this combination of dust from impact and soot from forest fires will remain in earths atmosphere for a year or so and blocks light from sun . So due to this much of earth's plantlife on land and in sea will die . Many animals and even human race will die either in beginning or later due to lack of food and devastation of environment .

Dinosaurs extinction occured due to this .