Are asteroids a legitimate danger to humans on planet earth?
Are asteroids a legitimate danger to humans on planet earth?
user
Gosh, this is a really difficult question!  While many asteroids are “near-earth”, there are still a lot that pass really far away, and we’re still discovering new ones every year.  I’d say that earth is safe for the foreseeable future, but let’s talk about this together.
assistant
D we have technology available to us should we locate an asteroid that's on a collision course with earth?
user
Sure, we can talk about that.  Most asteroids are really small, so actually there are only a handful of asteroids that are larger than a kilometer across, and they don’t come very close to us.  But there are plenty of asteroids in the “ten-meter” class and even smaller.  Let’s say that an asteroid that size hits us - the energy of the collision would be equivalent to detonating several hundred nuclear warheads.  That would be a massive disaster, with people everywhere panicking, and much loss of life and property.
assistant
What was the last meteor that could have possibly damaged life on earth?
user