It was around 66 million years ago that a deadly asteroid hit the earth and resulted in the extinction of dinosaurs. At that time, dinosaurs were the most dominant species on earth and predators like Tyrannosaurus Rex (T-Rex) roamed across the planet like ferocious warriors. However, the collision of earth with the rogue space body turned things upside down, and dinosaurs were wiped off from the surface of the blue planet.

What if doomsday asteroid moments earlier or later?

The doomsday asteroid that resulted in the extinction of dinosaurs hit the shallow waters of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. The nine-mile wide space rock hit Earth with the destructive force of 10 billion Hiroshima bombs, and the radioactive shockwave literally obliterated everything for hundreds of miles in every direction. It also resulted in the creation of giant tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, which ultimately pulled the planet to a state of nuclear winter.

But if that asteroid had arrived mere moments earlier or later, it would have plunged into the deep sea of the Pacific or Atlantic oceans, and we would have been living in a different world today.

” Without the catastrophic asteroid impact and removal of the dinosaurs from the scene, it is unlikely that the inconspicuous mammals would have ever evolved into the large and diverse animals that fill the world today,” said Michael Robert Rampino, a professor at the New York University.

Dinosaurs will undergo evolution, humans might have gone extinct

According to Robert Rampino, if dinosaurs have survived the asteroid impact, these creatures could have undergone major evolutionary changes. They also believe that dinosaurs might have also acquired hands and a large brain in the course of time.

However, the fate of humans will be under uncertainty if dinosaurs are still there on the earth. It was the absence of dinosaurs, and a safe haven to live which played a crucial role in determining human evolution. If dinosaurs were there on the surface of the earth, humans would have faced the deadly killing spree of predators like T-Rex.

Alexander Pearce, an Irish convict notorious for cannibalizing his fellow prison escapees had confessed that human meat is very tasty and delicious. If dinosaurs find human meat tasty, they would have vigorously hunt down humans, and it may even result in the extinction of our species from the planet.

And moreover, if dinosaurs are still there on planet earth, the movie Jurassic Park would not have become a reality. And yeah, what is the point in creating a movie if entire humans are running to save their lives from deadly Jurassic predators in real life.

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More details of this potentially hazardous asteroid

NASA’s Center of Near-Earth Object Studies claims that this asteroid named 2011 ES4 is about 22 meters to 49 meters in diameter, and it is apparently screeching across the skies at a mindblowing speed of 18,253 miles per hour.

During the time of its close approach, this asteroid will be almost 2,38,000 miles away from the earth. Even though this distance is quite big in human terms, it is very short as per astronomical terms, considering the vastness of the space.

Even though the chance of a potential collision is pretty less, several factors like gravitational keyhole could attract the space rock to the earth’s atmosphere. Considering the small size of this asteroid, it may not reach the earth’s surface, but it could cause a mid-air explosion, very similar to the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor event which resulted in thousands of casualties and structural damage.

Why NASA is developing a planetary protection weapon?

Due to regular threats from space in the form of asteroids and meteors, NASA is currently developing a planetary defense weapon to deflect the original collision course trajectories of rogue rocks. This weapon is basically a giant spacecraft, and NASA is planning to hit this craft onto an approaching asteroid to change its trajectory.

But several space experts believe that NASA’s plans to deflect trajectory using planetary defense weapon will not work when giant space rocks like Apophis and Bennu approach the earth. According to these experts, the only viable way to destroy these asteroids is by exploding them using giant nuke heads.

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