New interactive map lets you drop asteroids on Time Square, London or any place ... trends now
A new interactive map brings the 1998 film Deep Impact to life, allowing users to drop a space rock anywhere globally to watch the devastation unfold.
Called Asteroid Launcher, the system lets you choose a location of impact, the diameter of the asteroid, the speed at which it hits the ground and the collision angle - and hit 'launch' to see the destructions it causes and the number of people killed.
If an asteroid measuring one mile in diameter smashes into Time Square at 152,000 miles per hour, it would create a 34-mile-wide crater and vaporize 9,486,287 people with the impact equivalent to 6,403 Gigatons of TNT.
The system also shares other catastrophic events that follow, including shock waves, fireball size and wind speed.
Asteroid Launcher is the brainchild of creative coder Neal Agarwal who told DailyMail.com he was inspired by his favorite movie Deep Impact and wanted to create a website that simulated disasters.
Asteroid Launcher lets users choose a location to drop an asteroid. This simulation released a one-mile-wide asteroid on Time Square in New York City, creating a 34-mile-wide crater
'I love disaster movies and playing out different end-of-the-world scenarios in my head,' Agarwal told DailyMail.com.
'This project took about two months to complete, one month of research and one month for the coding and animations.'
He explained the equations behind Asteroid Launcher from research papers by Dr. Gareth Collins and Dr. Clemens Rumpf, who study the effects of an asteroid impact.
'I chose those research papers because they have detailed equations and models of all the various effects of an asteroid impact (thermal radiation, wind, shock waves, earthquakes, ect),' Agarwal said.
'They also do a great job of summarizing the current knowledge of the field.'
The website also shows destructive events that would follow the initial impact, such as this 74-mile-wide fireball that would give more than four million people third-degree burns and kill over nine million
Another option shows the intense earthquakes that would be triggered following the impact
Asteroid Launcher details all the events, destruction and deaths that would potentially occur in the event of an actual asteroid impact.
For example, if the same size asteroid that hit Manhattan hits London while traveling at the same speed of 152,000 miles per hour, it would also create a 34-mile-wide crater that would vaporize more than 7.7 million people in the surrounding area.
In Time Square, the fireball would cover an area of 74 miles would vaporize 30,561,023 people.
And in London, the same fireball would be
