1. If an asteroid about 10 kilometers in size is in an impact course with Earth, will we be able to survive? Why or why not? ___________________________________________ _ _2. What do you think will happen to the organisms living in the area where the comet or asteroid crashed? _ _ _ 3. Aside from the destruction of the living organisms, what do you think will be the effect of the impact crater to the surroundings? How would it affect the air? _ _ ___________________________________________

1. If the comet is 10 kilometers across or larger (that is, if the impact carries an energy of more than about 100 million megatons), the resulting global environmental damage will be so extensive that it will lead to a mass extinction, in which most life forms die.

2. Plants die, animals die. Animals that happen to live underground, where roots and other food sources are not destroyed, have a relatively good chance of survival. "During the impact, the comet is blown to smithereens.

3. The best known impact crater was the one associated with the end of the dinosaurs and probably 90% of other living things on Earth. That hit close to Chicxulub, north of modern Mexico, 66 million years ago. The crater was 150 km across, 20 km deep (93 miles x 12 miles). It showered burning debris across the whole world. A huge firestorm and tsunami washed across much of north and south America. It probably caused a nuclear winter for 3 years. A layer of iridium from the asteroid was deposited all around the world, providing a marker of the event.