OT: meteor impact damage calculator

[bearclaw]

This was created by a team of university researchers to help with research related to, obviously, earth impacts. Thought others might like to take a look.

Scary.

http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects/

[Slick]

Interesting. Strange that they only addressed land hits and crater size and did not address that the earth's surface is ~70% water. If all parts of the earth are equally likely to be hit, then there is a ~70% chance that it will hit water. This would generate some form of tidal wave or tsunami. If the projectile has enough mass that we would "worry about it", the tidal wave could have much more life-threatening effects for humans since population is more concentrated near costal areas.

Slick.

[bearclaw]

If you check at the bottom there is an entry for Target Parameters where you can input a density for your target or select from the dropdown menu. Ice/water is one of the options. Although you are right that it doesn't give wave sizes and energies. It just covers ejecta.

[General Woundwort]

I entered for an asteroid hitting water at 5 km/sec at a 12 degree angle.

Dang it, it didn't "skip"!

But I loved this Last bit in the results page...

These results come with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY

[Raging Deadstar]

I'm curious if we could enter the details of mars or the moon, and test that out.

Hopefully the results will show we might be able to Pot the Earth into Mercury that then travels into the sun!