All of these images are from Don Davis at NASA. If you are interested in using these images for anything, such as a web site, then please view the See NASA Use Policy. None of them carry a copyright or a water mark.

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This is what it would probably look like if a seven hundred mile wide asteroid smashed into the earth. Such a disaster is called a "Cosmic Winter". It may also be called an "Impact Winter". Such an impact would change the face of our planet forever. Life would take thousands to millions of years to regenerate, if at all. Earth would loose all of its distinguishing characteristics. From space it would appear as a dark gray mass. There would be no difference between it and it's neighbor Venus, which is shrouded in clouds. Thousands of Tons of dust and debris would cover the land and the oceans. Even if you could remove the clouds all you would see would be grey with the exception of the crash site which would be venting lava and gasses from within the earth.

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This picture depicts an asteroid which is about 250 miles by over 2000 miles impacting off the coast of one of the world's continents. If such a large asteroid were to hit the earth there would be no survivors. In fact the entire planet would be obliterated. All that would remain would be a piece here and a piece there. But still no life anywhere.

Before impact we may try to break up an impending asteroid or even stop it. NASA and others are actually developing ways to prevent an asteroid hit on earth. In my opinion all of the methods that I have heard of seem kind of ridiculous but you make your own opinion. One method suggested is to attach a larch type of parachute to it so it will be carried of by the solar winds. See what I mean about downright stupid. I mean some of them sound really good though. One of these such of ideas os to attach a liquid fuel rocket engine to the stellar rock and fire the engine re-directing the asteroid on a new path away from earth. Unfortunately, an asteroid of the size of the one above would be very hard to chnge the course of because of the incredible mass involved.

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A large body of scientific evidence now exists that support the hypothesis that a major asteroid or comet impact occurred in the Caribbean region at the boundary of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods in Earth's geologic history. Such an impact is suspected to be responsible for the mass extinction of many floral and faunal species, including the large dinosaurs, that marked the end of the Cretaceous period. Until now, the remains of such an impact crater have escaped detection. The geohydrological feature (Cenote Ring) of Northwestern Yucatan, was discovered through NASA Ames Remote Sensing technology, and represents a prime candidate for the impact site of a global catastrophic event.

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This site is in no way surreal at all. Some of readers out there have told me that it is. These are "artist's renderings" of what it might, and probobly would, look like if one of these were to impact the planet. These renderings are based on our observations of asteroids and other stellar junk hitting other bodies in space, like the moon for example.