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Fact Sheet about meteorite impacts and Near Earth Objects (NEO’s) |
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Fact Sheet about meteorite impacts and Near Earth Objects (NEO’s)
The following data about Near-Earth Objects are from Duncan Steel's book ‘Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets’ . About 2,000 objects massive enough (1 km diameter) to cause global catastrophe are known to cross Earth's orbit. Such an impacting object would wipe out 25% of humanity.
| size (m) |
number of objects
crossing Earth's orbit |
| 500 |
10,00 |
| 100 |
300,00 |
| 10 |
150 million
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How often do meteorites hit the Earth?
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size
|
frequency (once every)
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|
Pea
|
10 minutes
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Walnut
|
hour
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Grapefruit
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10 hours
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Football
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month
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50-m rock (Tunguska)
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100 years
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1-km asteroid
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100,000 years
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2-km asteroid
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500,000 years
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10-km asteroid
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50 million years
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A football-sized rock could wipe out half of the Netherlands.
A 10-km asteroid (like the one that killed the dinosaurs) could kill all people on Earth.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 17 August 2006 )
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