Asteroid shock: Could humans survive if a dinosaur-ending space rock hit Earth?

Dinosaurs were all but wiped out when an asteroid believed to have been between 10-15 kilometres wide came crashing into what is now Mexico 66 million years. Research from the University of Glasgow has found up to three quarters of life on Earth was destroyed by the asteroid strike, with the dinosaurs dying out within a few centuries. This is because the asteroid caused a cloud of dust to fill the air which blocked out the sun, leading to drastic and sudden climate change that ultimately created major food shortages across Earth.

However, humans are more intelligent than dinosaurs and would be able to survive using their cunning, scientist and mathematician Robert Walker told website Science 2.0.

Mr Walker said: “If you look at some of the past extinction events, you might think that humans could go extinct very easily.

“The worst of all of those was the Permian–Triassic extinction event during which 96 percent of marine species and 70 percent of land species went extinct according to one estimate.

“So based on those figures you might well think that there is a 70 percent chance that humans would go extinct as a result of whatever causes those extinctions.

“However, even after the extinction of the dinosaurs, birds, dawn sequoia, river turtles, small mammals and many other plants and creatures survived.

“Many species would go extinct after a gamma ray burst or a large asteroid impact but humans are great survivors.

“We were at risk in the past before we developed tools and clothing. But with clothes, tools, boats, etc, we are an extremely adaptable species, able to survive anywhere from the Kalahari desert to the Arctic, with only stone age technology.

“We had already colonised most of the world by the end of the neolithic period.

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“So, as long as we retain at least stone age technology, there isn’t much that could make us extinct.

“Even if we have to go back to beach-combing and surviving on shellfish, which was a staple of early human diet in cold places such as Canada and Scotland, one way or another some humans would survive.”

One such asteroid which would have global consequences is heading Earth’s way.

The asteroid known as 1990 MU is currently completing another orbit of the Sun, and in 2027 it could come perilously close to Earth.

Asteroid 1990 MU is between 4-9 kilometres in diameter and on June 6 2027, it will be a “near Earth object”, according to NASA analysis.

The asteroid will be just 0.03 AU from Earth, just an astronomical hair’s width from our planet.

One AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun, so coming within just 0.03 AU is perilously close.

For reference, Mars is around 0.5 AU.

The asteroid is classed as a potentially hazardous asteroid, which according to NASA has the “potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth”.

source: express.co.uk