NASA_AsteroidWatch

An Earth impacting asteroid larger than about 2-3 kilometers would likely hit with a velocity of about 15 km per second (about 15 times the velocity of a high speed rifle) and it would cause global problems. Even so, most lifeforms would survive. There are no current near-Earth asteroids large enough to cause the type of extinction event Earth witnessed 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs checked out. Don

It depends on how much warning time we have. If we know 10 years ahead of time, we could send a spacecraft out to ram the asteroid about, say, 5 years before it was predicted to hit. We would only have to change its velocity by something like a centimeter per second or so to make it miss the Earth. PC

Hi, This is Lance. When I was in high school I played "Asteroids" a lot. My girlfriend was delighted because I was the only person who could get a higher score than her brother.

Yes, a captured asteroid could provide raw materials. We'd love to discover a water-rich carbonaceous target that we could maneuver to lunar orbit. With water we could make rocket fuel and use that as a depot for deep space missions, including Mars. bkm

It depends on how thick the chocolate crust is. Steve