Level 7 asteroids are as potentially devastating as in Level 6, but their odds of impact are higher, between 1-99%. Governments should come together to figure out ASAP whether a Level 7 asteroid will hit. They should begin planning for an impact even if it’s a century away.
Red zone: Danger incoming!
At Level 8, an asteroid has a greater than 99% chance of hitting Earth. A collision is now all but certain. Unless something is done to stop it, this impact would be at least as explosive as a nuclear bomb, and at most powerful enough to wipe a city off the map. Impacts like this happen once roughly every 100 to 10,000 years.
Level 9 asteroids have a greater than 99% chance of hitting Earth and could demolish a region the size of a city or small country if they did hit. Impacts this large happen every tens or hundreds of thousands of years, on average.
A Level 10 asteroid is the doomsday scenario that tabloids and scifi movies talk about. This is an asteroid with a greater than 99% chance of hitting Earth, and one large enough to devastate our planet, trigger mass extinctions, and potentially end civilization. Thankfully, impacts like this only happen roughly once every few hundred thousand years.We’ve also found more than 90% of the objects large enough to pose a threat like this, and none are on a collision course.
Now, next time an asteroid like Apophis or 2024 YR4 makes the news, you can look at its Torino rating and ask yourself: does this spell catastrophe, clickbait, or something in between?