Simulation Shows What An Asteroid Hitting St. Louis Would Look Like

Huge asteroid impacting Earth, illustration

Photo: Getty Images

Have you ever wondered what would happen if an asteroid hit your city? Well, wonder no more!

Asteroid Launcher, created by developer Neal Agarwal, is a terrifyingly-detailed website that allows you to simulate exactly how an asteroid might impact any given local. You can even customize the asteroid that will crush, vaportize and set fire to your city.

Start by selecting asteroid's composition. Have fun with it! You can choose from iron, stone, carbon, comet and gold. Next, select the diameter, speed and impact angle of the asteroid. Finally, pick the impact location and launch your very own deadly space rock.

The site provides extremely detailed estimates of the death and destruction your personalized natural disaster would cause to really send you into an existential crisis. For example: if the default asteroid (an iron asteroid 1,500-feet in diameter hurtling towards the earth at a speed of 38,000 mph and an impact angle of 45 degrees) hit St. Louis, it would hit the ground at 37,680 mph and create a crater 1,866-feet deep. It would also produce a 8.3-mile wide fireball and a 241 decibel shock wave. In addition, it would generate a 7.1 magnitude earthquake that would be felt 140 miles away. Neat!

Try out Agarwal's Asteroid Launcher for yourself.


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