This asteroid impact simulator allows you to destroy the world

Hundreds of thousands of asteroids lurk in our solar system, and while space agencies track many of them, there’s always the chance that one will suddenly appear on a collision course with Earth. A new application on the website Neal.funny shows what could happen if one struck anywhere on the planet.

Neal Agarwal was developed Asteroid simulator to show the potentially extreme local effects of different types of asteroids. The first step is to choose your asteroid, with options of iron, stone, carbon and gold, or even an icy comet. The diameter of the asteroid can be set up to 1 mile (1.6 kilometers); its speed can be between 1,000 and 250,000 miles per hour; and the impact angle can be set up to 90 degrees. Once you’ve selected a raid location on a global map, prepare for mayhem.

“I grew up watching disaster movies like Deep impact i armageddon, and so I always wanted to make a tool that would allow me to visualize my own asteroid impact scenarios,” Agarwal told Gizmodo in an email. “I think this tool is for anyone who likes play out the “what if” scenarios in your head. The mathematics and physics behind the simulation are based on research papers from Dr. Gareth Collins i Dr. Clemens Hull both of which study asteroid impacts.”

Once you’ve programmed the asteroid and launched it at the desired target, Asteroid Simulator guides you through the devastation. First, it will show you the width and depth of the crater, the number of people vaporized by the impact, and the amount of energy released. It will then walk you through the size and effects of the fireball, shock wave, wind speed and earthquake generated by the asteroid.

NASA has its eyes on more than 19,000 near-Earth asteroids. Although no known space rock poses an imminent threat to Earth, events such as the 2013 Impact of Chelyabinsk in Russia they remind us of the need for a robust planetary defense. Just this year, NASA tested one asteroid deflection strategy using his DART spacecraftwith resounding success.