If an asteroid about 500 meters in diameter hits Teruel, it would kill approximately 117,000 people due to the impact and the subsequent fireball it would cause. It would leave a crater on the ground 9.7 kilometers wide and 583 meters deep. The explosion would be equivalent to 12 gigatons of TNT, more powerful than the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated. Buildings within 99 kilometers and houses within the 133 kilometer zero point circle will be demolished.

Not only this: 19,049 people will die from the shock waveAnyone within 44 kilometers will likely suffer lung damage, and anyone within 57 kilometers will have ruptured eardrums.

An estimated 124,211 people would have died from the gusts of wind, which would have been stronger and faster than the storms on Jupiter. Nearly all trees within a radius of 142 km will be cut and Causes an earthquake that can be felt from 234 kilometers1,501 more people died in the earthquake.

How do we know all this?

We know this thanks to a tool called Asteroid Launcher. online This allows people to see how devastating an asteroid or comet impact could be anywhere in the world. Basically an interactive map lets you play god and launch a space stone anywhere on the planet and plan the resulting chaos.

Best of all, you can choose the type of asteroid: gold, iron, stone or carbon. Users also have the freedom to adjust the diameter, velocity and angle of impact of their asteroid. What would happen if a 500 meter asteroid crashed into Salamanca at 17 kilometers per hour? so what would have killed about 250,000 people and it would leave a 10 kilometer destruction crater.

Another wonder of this simulator is that after each collision it shows you the results, which include details such as effects on population and plants, estimated deaths from sudden evaporation, people affected by burns, clothing and trees. shock waves produced (and how they will affect the ears and lungs), even caused by strong winds and earthquakes.

Come on, pretty much everything happens after a massive disaster like an asteroid hitting Earth.

According to the website, it took two months and a lot of deep physics to complete the simulator. Creator of Asteroid Launcher Neal Agarwalis a developer with a passion for creative coding. “I love him represents disaster scenarios in my head, so I’ve always wanted a tool to help me visualize the effects of a major natural disaster,” he explained in this Vice article.

“Asteroids are a good choice because their impact is far-reaching. I think this tool could also help people better understand our need to deflect asteroids, as in NASA’s DART mission,” he added.

D., a professor at Imperial College London who studies the physics of collisions, to realize the project. Gareth Collins and a former NASA engineer who has published several articles on the asteroid, Dr. He benefited from the work and research of Clemens Rumpf. accidents and their effects on humanity.

This simulator reminds us a lot of Nuke Maps, a project we talked about at Magnet that allows you to launch nuclear bombs around the planet and witness the effect. However, the Asteroid Launcher version is much more artistic and has a slightly better design. The data it processes is also more complex.

“Asteroid impact simulation is a whole field of research, and it can be pretty tough, because supercomputers needed to get the most accurate results,” Agarwal explained. But thanks to minds like him, we can know what would happen if an asteroid hit our office today.

Images: Asteroid Launcher.