Earth impact hazard

Simulated Meteor Crash

By  Tasha Moideen

An ominous simulation of the effects of a large meteor crash featured on the Discovery Channel program, Miracle Planet, depicts our blue planet being transformed into a glowing, fiery ball of death and destruction.  See also Britannica’s entry “Earth impact hazard.”The danger of collision posed by astronomical small bodies whose orbits around the Sun carry them near Earth. These objects include the rocky asteroids and their larger fragments and the icy nuclei of comets.
Space in the vicinity of Earth contains a great number of solid objects in a range of sizes. The tiniest (millimetre-size and smaller) and by far most abundant ones.