Asteroid simulation sparks scary outcome for New York City

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Asteroid simulation sparks scary outcome for New York City | USA TODAY

In a NASA simulation of a fictional scenario, New York City was hit with an asteroid packing 1,000 times the destruction of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The exercise, which was part of the "National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan" published by the White House, played out at the the 2019 Planetary Defense Conference in College Park, Maryland, last week. It was a worst-case scenario showing what would happen if a giant space rock crashed into Earth in 2027. Paul Chodas, the NASA engineer who designed the exercise, told AFP the simulated asteroid and its terrifying outcome is "highly unlikely" but he wanted "the issues to be exposed and discussed." In the scenario, an asteroid that originally had a 1 in 10 chance of hitting Earth becomes a threat. The 140-260 meter asteroid had a projected impact over Denver, Colorado. So, the simulation team launched spacecrafts to deflect it. But a fragment of the asteroid broke off and continued to hurl toward North America. The rock, then 60-meters in size (about 197 feet), was over Manhattan. An asteroid that size is big enough to devastate a city. At the end of the exercise, the only way to save New Yorkers was to evacuate New York City.

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