Near-Earth Objects
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Jan 1, 1986
close approach date
Speed:
Objects shown: 0 | Total: 0
Threat Classification — Potential Ground Impact
| Size | Threat Level | Impact Description |
|---|---|---|
| 50m+ | City threat | Powerful airburst or ground impact. Tunguska (1908, ~40-50 m) flattened 2,000 km² of forest — equivalent to a 10-15 megaton nuclear bomb. Would destroy a large city. |
| 150m+ | Metro area | Hits ground with most mass intact. Crater 1-3 km wide. Shockwave destroys everything within ~15-30 km radius. Would level an entire metro area. |
| 300m+ | Regional | Crater 3-6 km wide. Destruction radius ~100+ km. Tsunamis if ocean impact. Equivalent to hundreds of megatons of TNT. Could devastate a small country. |
| 600m+ | Continental | Crater 5-12 km wide. Firestorms across thousands of km². Ocean impact creates tsunamis 10-50 m high hitting coastlines hundreds of km away. |
| 1km+ | Sub-global | Crater 10-20 km wide. Continental-scale firestorms. Dust enters stratosphere, causing cooling for months. Crop failures across multiple continents. Billions at risk. |
Global Catastrophe Threshold
| Size | Threat Level | Impact Description |
|---|---|---|
| 2km+ | Global | Global climate disruption. "Impact winter" — dust blocks sunlight for 1-2 years. Temperatures drop 5-10 °C. Worldwide crop failures. Estimated casualties: 1-2 billion. |
| 5km+ | Global | Prolonged impact winter lasting 3-5+ years. Near-total agricultural collapse. Sunlight reduced 90%+. Majority of human population perishes. |
| 10km+ | Global | Mass extinction event. 60-80% of all species go extinct. Impact winter 5-10+ years. Photosynthesis stops. Civilization ends entirely. |
| 15km | Global | Chicxulub class (the dinosaur killer, 66 Mya). Wiped out 75% of all species. Took millions of years for biodiversity to recover. |
| 15km+ | Global | Near-total extinction. Would sterilize large portions of Earth's surface. No confirmed impact this large in 2 billion years. |
Important context:
- NASA tracks everything 140m+ as "potentially hazardous" (official threshold)
- No known asteroid 1km+ is on a collision course with Earth in the next 100+ years
- All ~950 known near-Earth asteroids 1km+ have been tracked — none are threats
- The real unknowns are in the 25–140m range — ~25,000 exist, only ~40% discovered so far
- The minimum size of an asteroid that will not burn up in Earth’s atmosphere is about 25m for rocky (granite or basalt) asteroids and about 3m for metal (iron–nickel) asteroids to be able to reach the surface
Data source: NASA/JPL Small-Body Database Close-Approach Data (SBDB CAD API). Dataset: 1986–2126, within 50 lunar distances, all sizes. 94,712 recorded and predicted close approaches.