Asteroid ‘God of chaos’: How well prepared are we to face catastrophe?

Asteroid 'God of Chaos' may smash into Earth at breakneck speeds of 15,000mph. Reports suggest that the asteroid is taller than the Eiffel Tower. Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, has already warned that a massive asteroid will hit Earth and space agencies will not be able to do anything about it.

"Great name! Wouldn’t worry about this particular one, but a big rock will hit Earth eventually & we currently have no defense," Musk tweeted while responding to a news on the NASA is preparing for the ‘colossal God of Chaos’ asteroid.

If the 27bn kg asteroid were to hit Earth, scientists calculate it would leave a crater more than a mile wide and a staggering 518 metres deep, Express reported.

It added that the 370-metre-wide asteroid is potentially on a collision course with Earth – and the NASA is unable to completely rule out a strike. The impact would be equivalent to 880 million tons of TNT being detonated – 65,000 times as powerful as the nuclear bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima.

Asteroid 'God of chaos': How well prepared are we? 

In 2016, a NASA scientist warned that the Earth is unprepared for such an event. In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported "It's 100 per cent certain we'll be hit , but we're not 100 per cent sure when." Also, in 2018, physicist Stephen Hawking, in his final book Brief Answers to the Big Questions, considered an asteroid collision to be the biggest threat to the planet. 

Asteroid impact avoidance comprises a number of methods by which near-Earth objects (NEO) could be diverted, preventing destructive impact events. A sufficiently large impact by an asteroid or other NEOs would cause, depending on its impact location, massive tsunamis, multiple firestorms and an impact winter caused by the sunlight-blocking effect of placing large quantities of pulverized rock dust, and other debris, into the stratosphere.

According to expert testimony in the United States Congress in 2013, NASA would require at least five years of preparation before a mission to intercept an asteroid could be launched.