Say it was the size of Corsica and traveling at the speed of a reversing truck and bumped into a land mass. Would it still be an extinction level event?
Say it was the size of Corsica and traveling at the speed of a reversing truck and bumped into a land mass. Would it still be an extinction level event?
Let’s suppose some fun-loving aliens lower that rock slow enough that touchdown isn’t some cataclysmic event. We now have an asteroid 60 Km across at its widest point sitting on the Earth’s surface. That surface will immediately start to experience the pressure you’d find 60 Km deep in the Earth. There are places on Earth where the solid crust extends lower than that, there are others where that’s inside the mantle.
The weight might crush the crustal plate into the mantle, in which case the effect will be very much like a supervolcano going off. Smoke, toxic gas, exploding rocks tossed hundreds of kilometres. It’ll last decades or possibly centuries. Chances are, you’ve enjoyed your last hot fudge sundae.
But maybe the crust is strong enough to support the weight - until a few hours pass and it starts to melt from pressure and heat. As it melts it compresses and flows, sending stress through neighbouring seismic fault lines and causing earthquakes, regular-size volcanic eruptions and tsunamis across a vast area. It may not be enough to destroy the environment, but it’ll be serious enough make everyone forget about global warming as an issue.
This is speculation. I’m neither a geologist nor an asteroid the size of Corsica.
This is all assuming the asteroid is set down, so it then is under gravitational forces from the planet right?
What if the aliens just suspended it above NYC with a tractor beam? I ask, because this is essentially sometbing that happens in the Elder Scrolls lore and I always wondered how having a rogue planet suspended only a few yards from the earth would actually affect things.
New Solar System Discovered Four Feet From Earth
Well, most asteroids are agglomerations - loose rock and dust held together by gravity. Unless the aliens are supporting every part of it, on the inside as well, it’s going to rain gravel on New York. If it’s solid enough and low enough, maybe it would be worth mining?
Gravity would be slightly weaker under it, because of its own gravity, but I think the difference would be small enough that you’d need measuring equipment to see it. No moon hopping.
Weather would be different. I think there’d be more rain on the windward side, because some water-laden air would have to drop its load in order to rise over it. You’d get wind vortices on the other side of it.