The Debris From a London-Sized Asteroid Strike Would Block Out the Sun

It's been almost a year since a meteorite unexpectedly blew up over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia. The explosion — which scientists say was a blinding 30 times brighter than the sun — sent off a shock wave that defaced 7,000 buildings and injured more than 1,400 people

The amount of damage was undoubtably huge. But the actual rock? Not so much. At 18 meters around, it was roughly half as wide as Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer statue — big, but surprisingly small for an object that caused $33 million in repairs in a matter of minutes

This got us thinking: What happens when smaller (and bigger) objects fly into our atmosphere? We used Purdue University's "Impact: Earth!" simulator to find our answers. Our own Bob Al-Greene illustrated the results, as seen in the gallery above. Read more...