130,000-ton asteroid a close call

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - An asteroid hurtling towards Earth is a fear of many, and on Friday afternoon around 1:30 pm, that fear will be very close to reality.
 
"We know its position so accurately we can tell within plus or minus a mile or two where it will be. There is absolutely no chance it will hit the earth," Jay Melosh "Impact:Earth!" creator said.

Known as the 2012 DA-14, the 130,000 ton, 50 meter-wide asteroid will fly by Earth only 17,000 miles away.

Scientists said as the asteroid passed Earth, its speed will be nearly eight times faster than a speeding bullet.

With numbers like those, many can't help but wonder, "What if the asteroid were to make contact?"

"If you were right under the impact, if it were on Chicago, most of downtown Chicago would be destroyed," Melosh said. "Here at Purdue even the air blast arrives about 10 minutes after impact. We get a maximum wind speed of only about 5.5 miles per hour."

Melosh developed the Impact:Earth! website so you can test different densities, speeds and sizes of asteroids and what would happen if there was impact.

For example, a 1-kilometer wide asteroid, with the density of iron, moving at 41 miles per second, would send a 500 mile per hour blast of wind through Lafayette just ten seconds after impact, if it were to hit Chicago.

A scary outcome that's a real possibility, but Melosh said don't lose sleep.

"If you do the numbers, you have a higher chance of being killed by a meteor impact than you do by an airplane crash," Melosh said. "The chances are very, very low but if it were to happen it might kill 80 percent of the humans alive on Earth."

Certainly not the most comforting fact, but Melosh said devastating impacts only occur once every million years.

Melosh designed Impact:Earth alongside Purdue Earth and Atmospheric Science students in 2005.