Asteroid Impact Effects And Their Immediate Hazards For Human Populations

TL;DR

This study analyzes 50,000 artificial asteroid impacts to determine the dominant effects causing human casualties, highlighting differences based on impact size, location, and impact type to aid disaster preparedness.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis of impact effects and their influence on human casualties across a wide range of asteroid sizes and impact scenarios.

Findings

Wind blast and overpressure are dominant effects for certain impact sizes.

Surface impacts over land are significantly more deadly than over water.

Casualty numbers vary notably between airburst and surface impacts.

Abstract

A set of 50,000 artificial Earth impacting asteroids was used to obtain, for the first time, information about the dominance of individual impact effects such as wind blast, overpressure shock, thermal radiation, cratering, seismic shaking, ejecta deposition and tsunami for the loss of human life during an impact event for impactor sizes between 15 to 400 m and how the dominance of impact effects changes over size. Information about the dominance of each impact effect can enable disaster managers to plan for the most relevant effects in the event of an asteroid impact. Furthermore, the analysis of average casualty numbers per impactor shows that there is a significant difference in expected loss for airburst and surface impacts and that the average impact over land is an order of magnitude more dangerous than one over water.