Asteroids

Essay # 57683

Astronomy > Cosmology
Environmental Studies

Asteroids

This paper discusses the argument that asteroids pose the largest threat to human existence.

1,130 words () | 5 sources | MLA | 2005 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that asteroids are the most significant threat to the human race, not population growth, because asteroids are powerful enough to devastate, if not destroy, all advanced life on the planet in a single blow, and our knowledge and ability to detect these space bullets are limited both in ability and in funding. The author points out that the risk of a catastrophic event occurring because of an outer space object is much higher than many of us would like to believe; asteroids pose a greater probability of occurring on a smaller scale than many other natural disasters like volcano eruptions or hurricanes. The paper stresses the claim that population growth will destroy the human race is mostly unwarranted because of the many internal checks against this growth, such as the decreasing birth rates in many industrialized nations, AIDS, and advancing science and political ideas.

From the Paper:

"Approximately 65 million years ago, an asteroid 10 kilometers across caused an impact releasing more energy than a million H-bombs. This impact resulted in the Chicxulub Crater in Mexico and was supposed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. It wouldn't take anything larger to cause similar extinction of the human race. Asteroids could potentially produce more destruction to our planet than any amount of nuclear devices we could detonate. Even asteroids that are too small to make it through our atmosphere could cause major damage in populated areas. The Tunguska meteorite exploded and vaporized in the upper atmosphere over Siberia, but the speed of the meteorite caused the explosion to devastate thousands of square kilometers of forest. If that meteorite were aimed at Beijing or New York there could have been millions killed without effective evacuation measures."