<div>Paul wrote:</div>
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<div>If it was an asteroid on collision with the Earth, then you'd know it was a problem that had to be fixed now.</div>
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<div>Deflecting a large mass extinction asteroid might be possible, but not with any means human beings now have available. If a large asteroid was on target for 2020, well...</div>
<div>I recently read an account of what would happen if a large mass extinction event asteroid hit the Earth. There would be no "problem that had to be fixed," except how to say goodbye. The account I read was so incredible, it seems impossible.
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<div>The asteroid would heat to a temperature that would burn the eyes of those looking at it entering the atmosphere. If hitting in the ocean, tsunamis several kilometers high would sweep across land masses. Upon impact so much hot material would be thrown so forcefully into such high altitudes, that eventually it would reach the other side of the planet, raising the surface temperature to hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit, creating global fire storms. Needless to say, all crops would be destroyed and all human cities wiped out. The sun would be blocked for a long enough period by atmospheric debris to mostly stop all plant growth that was possible after this scorching of the Earth's surface. Many other ugly consequences would occur, but it's clear that it would be miraculous if even a small number of human beings survived. An asteroid impact of this magnitude is one prominent theory that many have heard regarding the extinction of most of the dinosaurs, at the K-T extinction boundary, 65 million years ago. The crater Chicxulub, in Yucatan Mexico, 112 mile wide and 3000 ft. deep, is thought to be the remains of this mass extinction event asteroid's impact.
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<div>I imagine those in the nuclear bomb proof NORAD compound under Cheyenne Mountain in Wyoming might survive a massive asteroid impact for a time...</div>
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<div>Ted Moffett</div>