General Chat

OK, I'll be more precise now you've googled it.

Lets say the impactor is 5000m x 5000m. Travelling at 17 kps, angle 45 degrees.

That gives a kinetic energy on impact of 2.5E^6 megatons of TNT, 166 million times greater that little boy at Hiroshima.

Lets say it lands in the middle of the English channel.

There you go. Remember, its a thought exercise about survival, not a physics lesson, but I can make it one if you want me to :)

Would our family survive? Well, we have some practical skills but no knowledge of hunting and little of gathering & cultivating from seeds. A couple of family members are reliant on daily medication. Their lives would be limited to months if not weeks without access to pharmaceuticals.

We had a heated 'discussion' with a family member about how information/ knowledge is increasingly stored on electonic devices. My argument was that in a doomsday scenario we wouldn't be able to access it, where as there's a greater chance that information/knowledge stored in physical books could. Copies may be hard to come by, but some would survive.

None of the current near miss items exceed the 300 000 ton meteorite which hit Diablo canyon, Arizona 50 000 years ago. North America was not thought to be populated at that time tho plenty of animals. The Eurasian landmass was sparsely populated. Ancient humans must have coped or none of us would be around.

A metrorite of this size into the ocean would trigger a tsunami and drown a lot of people depending on location. A mega rockfall in the Azores c17 caused a tsunami which drowned a lot of people. Life went on in the same old way.

On land the damage would be greater but not enough to force survivalism. A hit on Washington would eliminate D Trump and everything else for a 50 to 100 mile radius. Nothing to lose sleep over .

Otoh anything the size of the two mile meteor which hit the Yucatan 66 ,M years ago and it's lights out.

No I wouldn't bother sticking around :-) so as far as that goes one of the survivors can eat me.

Lets say something 15 miles across - big enough to send us into an ice age for a couple of hundred years, depending on where it impacted. So ice would be down as far as the med. Survivors would have to migrate nearer to the equator, Africa and South America, Asia. Australians would have to go north. 90% of the worlds wildlife would be wiped out, probably that number of people as well.

So pretty Dystopian!

Or you can have a smaller one that just wipes out 50 % of life but totally destroys all infrastructure. That's more likely, to be honest.

take your pick!

How dystopian are we talking ? How big an asteroid ( and would we know in advance?) Would it wipe out the northern hemisphere only say or just be a total scorched earth affair? How many people are left and where? would a boat going to a remote island be an option or do I have to stay around Telford...if the latter I'd just chuck myself under said asteroid and have done with it :-)

It's other people I'd worry about.

I am sure we vegetarians would have to eat what we could get. Have always felt myself to be privileged to have the choice.

As well as eating what we could get, we should have to consider what future there might be and how to conserve the stock of food and potential food available.

No doubt somebody would naturally evolve as some sort of leader and you can be sure that the scrapping and squabbling would not take long to begin.

I've lived with no electricity, no gas, no sewerage, no instant hot water, no bathroom, no car, no washing machine. Once all at the same time, but usually just missing 4 or 5 of the above elements.
Had to walk over 5 (albeit small) fields to get to the road, in one of the above habitations grown, bred and killed my own food, also lived in a tent for 6 months - and went to work - so on those points, I can survive.

The only problem would be other people :-(

Just made me wonder how survivors in the western world would manage. Lots of places in the world where nothing much would change - their lives are already like that in many ways.

I think it would be a case of the tables being turned. It would certainly be a huge level playing field for mankind.

Interesting thought...well all of the survivalists in America would be fine :-D

I know it's unlikely, but just supposing that we get hit by an asteroid and life reverts to some sort of Dystopian society. Money has no value, gold is no use, the only thing that matters for those that live through it is survival.

How would you manage? No electricity, no gas, no mains water or sewerage, no medical facilities, no cars, no fuel, no army or police, just people wanting to survive against the odds.

Would vegetarians turn into meat eaters? Would the devout continue to call for divine aid? Would honest people steal and murder? Would cannibalism be rife?

In 2014 we will have a near miss with an asteroid designated 2011 AG5. As of today, we know of 1801 objects classed as potentially hazardous. It's a real scenario. Not wanting to worry anyone, of course :D